[Winter beach, January 2012.]

In Maine, where my toes are chillier than usual and the clouds seem tangible (and puffy) enough to hold in your hands. The clouds here are different than anywhere else I’ve seen them: arranged across the horizon in great billows rather than wisps. The sky this week, clear for the most part, has been the purest, brightest blue, turning the river across the street into shifting shades of indigo and then grey when a storm comes on. I took a walk-run yesterday morning to the end of the street and back; the ice in the river whispered past creakily on its way out to the coast as I tucked my hands deeper into my pockets. The landscape is so different from what I’m accustomed to, but there is that same wildness, that same edge-of-the-land stillness I so love about California. If not for my truest love for the West I think I could see myself living here (well … maybe. There’s that whole deep-freeze thing.).

But: Maine. It snowed in the night and we woke today to sun pouring through the windows of the upstairs rooms; utterly gorgeous. A bluebird day* for real and especially special because I’ll never see one of those in San Francisco. We went for a swim at the Y (Kurt played basketball) and coffee in town and will cook and bake later — Emily, delicious appetizers and bread and drinks and icecream; Kurt the main meal; me a chocolate-hazelnut torte — a bit for my last night. I am leaving tomorrow and I … don’t … want … to go, though I miss my husband and it will be good to come home to rain and the 49ers game and my little comfortable things around me and not only in a suitcase.

We’ve eaten well this week as I predicted: sweet potato enchiladas with homemade enchilada sauce, the best marinated and fried tofu and roasted cauliflower and carrots and some sort of scrumptious miso? dressing I must get the recipe for, beans from scratch and brown rice, mushroom risotto and an addictive brussels sprouts salad with grapefruit dressing, a decadent dinner at Trattoria Athena where we drank a bottle of the wine we so loved in Greece lo these many summers ago and I ate a piece of tiramisu that, yes, was probably the best I’ve ever had. And I’ve been inspired, as I knew I would with new cookery ideas, the impetus to step outside my comfort zone a little bit, to delve back into cookbooks more particularly to make such things as an easy and astonishingly delicious chard-kale gratin that tastes perfect alongside a fluffy pile of buttermilk-mashed potatoes or even a quick saute of garlic and chickpeas and greens …

[Along the Kennebec, January 2012.]

I like to do that choose-a-word-have-it-be-your-year’s-intention thing each year if I can. Sometimes it’s easier than others. Last year’s word was ‘peace’ but after getting engaged in February and planning a wedding in seven months there wasn’t a lot of ‘peace’ of mind for awhile. (Though, if I’m honest, there was peace in other areas; so, win some, lose some I guess.) Now it’s well in 2012 and around the first, when I decided to attempt to find a word, I couldn’t land on one. None felt right, nothing fit. Maybe 2012 will be the Year of No-Intention-Word, I thought, but still … I hoped something would come to me.

And then today! it did. From this old, lovely house in Bath where I type this, my toes just slightly on the side of freezing even wool socks, Fotis the grey-and-white cat asleep in a pile on the bed behind me, the San Francisco classical station streaming over the Internet to keep me company whilst I work, my hands warm in fingerless gloves, and a cup of tea steaming to my immediate left, I have found at last my word: make. It makes so much sense.

‘Make’ surely could’ve been last year’s word but I shall consciously apply it to this year instead. Always I am making: food, cookies, little cards, plans. But this will apply too to new friendships; books; others things I can’t think of at this moment but which probably are mostly food-related (of course). Like: make new dishes. Open up the cookbooks more. I can broaden my scope every night, make dinner less of a chore and more of a learning experience and then hopefully new things (dishes, ideas, a more cheerful attitude) will come out of that if nothing else. That gratin I made on Sunday in a riff from Alice Waters (‘The Art of Simple Food’) was so good and easy – why don’t I ever even open that one too much? I forget to make the time (get it?) to do that. I must make sure to open my mind up a bit more in casting about for new recipes. Cookbooks, even if I never strictly follow the recipe, serve to jumpstart the creative process for me. Remember this. And other things.

And then there is this, which I may just adopt for my 2012 motto: You have your whole life ahead of you. You will always have your whole life ahead of you. That never stops and you shouldn’t forget it. — Bill Bryson

(I love that.)

There also are almond butter cookies.

[Almond butter - + other stuff - cookies, January 2012.]

Thanks to Emily I’ve delved into the world of flourless baking and am finding it a new challenge and a pleasure. I’ve come up with a pretty decent recipe for gluten-free brownies as well as a decadent chocolate cake and ginger cookies, and am realizing there are many treats out there that are naturally flour-free (pots de creme, custards, rice puddings, milk chocolate puddings and the like). But the best, the best, recipe I’ve encountered and then developed a bit is for flourless peanut butter cookies.

What to say? These cookies are absolutely addictive. I made a batch a week ago and brought them on the plane with me, restraining myself from devouring them all. Of course, once here, they didn’t last long and so I made another round yesterday with special tweaks that I think made it the best version so far (and which I’m saving for an article, but I promise it’s worth the wait). I just devoured one, in fact, with my lunch. I will make some again very soon to send East to my grandma for her birthday, to make it special (OK, will stop now). From a spare ingredient list — 1 egg, almond butter, sugar, baking soda — comes a thing of beauty: chewy yet light at the same time, not-too-sweet, rich with nut nutter … these cookies are all good. Every single bite.

As is Maine, and my time here. I am so loathe to go but know real life beckons with its own particular goodness … back soon, for sure.

*Bluebird day: The most gorgeous day imaginable. A bluebird day is a bright, sunny day after a fresh snowfall the night before.

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[This morning, December 2011.]

December 30th. We are tiptoeing up to the edge of the year and peering over its edge into the unknown. I’m slowly sipping my last Hardcore Espresso coffee for awhile — to savor it, you know — after my last swim of 2011, with my feet tucked into the blankets to warm them up after the cool of the pool water. It wasn’t terribly cold, but it’s damp and almost drizzly out there and even when you’ve busily churned through the water for a mile or so to get your muscles loose and warm it seeps in. Not in a bad way necessarily, but it’s good to dive back into bed for a little bit before greeting the rest of the day.

I always forget how much I love swimming. Or no — I forget how much I love swimming in Sebastopol. I’ve been here for a week (!) now, to celebrate the holidays and also just to reconnect with my hometown. I shopped local for the kids in my life — a recycling truck made from, of course, recycled materials was a big hit –, there was a Christmas Eve brunch at the new cafe in town, there was running into high school friends on Main Street, there was a yoga class in which I finally learned to do a headstand, there were countless double 8 oz. americanos. And there was swimming — three times at the outdoor pool downtown. It always is a bit of a trip to swim there, because that’s where I learned to swim when I was about 5 years old twenty-something years awhile ago. How many hours did I log there during my stints as a day camp counselor? My hair was probably the blondest it will ever be because of all that sun. As running and I are on a hiatus for the foreseeable future I’m rediscovering my penchant for lap-swimming, grabbing onto yoga with both hands, and reminding myself that sometimes you have to take a break from things you love so that when you can engage in them again you’ll appreciate them all the more. Running is my fall-back, my steady, but skimming through chlorine-tinged water, taking the turns at the end, feeling the quiet whooosh of air and splashing water as you slice your arms cleanly through it — well, I cannot ever complain about it.

(Sigh.)

[Christmas 2011.]

On Christmas the sun burned through the fog at the coast leaving it clear and warm. California is so dry this year; the mountains are lacking their usual (and much-needed) carpet of snow, the hills of Sonoma County are pale gold still rather than green. And yet a part of me cannot regret this stolen month of sun. The light has been incredible lately — a winter-light, a pale blue and white so different from the blazing white-gold of October and then November when it is less intense but still very autumn. In early winter there is most often buckets of rain — last year for Christmas we were housebound before the fire with cookbooks and cups of tea, which was its own special pleasure — and when December 25th is clear it is my favorite present.

We went out to Bodega Head, which seems to be the place for the traditional Christmas coast walk, and man was it ever clear. It felt like summer, if we ever got real summer here. (OK, I take it back; I’ve had lots of nice July days along the coast, it’s just in San Francisco things get a bit grim.) Seals (or sea lions?) were leaping and playing like dolphins out of the breakers, surely celebrating that gift of a day in their own fashion. The massive group of them barking at each other on the little rock island offshore were perhaps singing carols but probably just fighting for space (they were so loud). Near the end of our walk we squinted into the sun to see — yes — whales spouting out to sea, the flash of a tail. Just another day to the ocean’s creatures but to we humans: magic.

This year the holidays were very social with drop-ins by and to us and lunch guests and celebrating an engagement and Christmas Eve dinner with the neighbors. I cooked a lot — two roasted chickens with lemon and rosemary, cauliflower soup, two cakes, various batches of cookies, latkes for a mid-week meal, more –, not to mention the crazy flurry of baking and packaging that occurred the week previous, and ate a lot too. It was a golden stretch of days: the presents were all just right, given and received; there was lots of sleep, if the daylight hours were full up with things to do; there was so much sun; there was just enough cooking to satisfy my need to throw a party. At the end of this stolen week, poised to go back to the city, I am grateful good friends and family and a few days off. And for all that swimming, too.

[Brekkie, Sebastopol, December 2011.]

I do not have any dramatic resolutions for the new year, but there are always a few: to buy American-made as much as possible, to really make an effort to seek it out; to buy local; to keep on with the composting (last year’s vow, and I have stuck to it pretty well); to shake myself out of the cooking rut I fall into when extremely busy (though I do think I could happily eat quinoa and vegetables every single day it might get boring); to go on more backpacking trips; to be a better correspondent; to jump back on the freelancing bandwagon with more vigor; to take time to slow down and not perpetually give in to the rushrush; to get up 15 minutes earlier every day. Little wishes for 2012 but perhaps they are achievable for their simplicity.

2011 was so full I think I am still chewing it over. So many trips to Yosemite. So much activity. So many visits from my best-beloveds. So much baking. 2012 is already looking to be full of travels by me — to Maine, so soon, to Costa Rica, perhaps to Michigan — and I will be baking yet another wedding cake (not mine this time, thankfully) as well as many other things I’m sure. Today, poised on the cusp, I hope for new adventures and good conversations and more time spent with those I love. I wish you much of the same — and for anything else you’re hoping for.

See you next year.

This is the time of year when all I’m doing is making up lists — constantly, consciously writing lists.

Example 1: For a holiday party this weekend, things still left to pick up
Acme breads
small (compostable) plates
small napkins
clementines
non-alcoholic delicious beverages
beer
ice
small cups
lights
xmas ornament hangers
arugula

(This may seem like a lot of things, but trust me it is far, far less than it was.)

Example 2: For a holiday party this weekend, things still to make
gingerbread men (and stars, and trees)
blackberry jam thumbprint cookies
roasted red pepper-white bean hummus
cranberry punch (day-of)
mushroom pizza squares (day-of)

(The already-made list includes things like flourless chocolate cake bites, cocoa-toasted and sea-salted hazelnuts, 1 1/2 smallish cheesecakes with gingersnap crusts, chocolate and dried fruit and nut candies, a faintly sweet, nutmeg-spiced cake … which means this little list feels like nothing at this point.)

These two are manageable, nothing to get concerned about. But they represent only two of the lists I’m currently maintaining — there’s the gifts for immediate family list; the edible gifts list; the gifts (+ edible) to go into the send-away boxes list; the ingredients for the second round of holiday baking list; the ideas for Christmas Eve (and perhaps Christmas) dinner — and what about breakfast? — list; the holiday cards list; the work party baking + gifts list; the things I must grab for tomorrow night’s dinner list …

(And tucked away is the idea for another list, the post-holiday week long weekend of New Year’s Eve/Day list, which involves wee menus and plots for picnics on the beach and a visit to a little pub in Muir Beach on the first day of the year … oh, am trying not to get too much ahead of myself.)

My lists are not organized on my computer — oh, if only — nor are they tacked up on the wall near my desk so I can observe, update, and amend them, nor are they kept in any kind of notebook or folder. Rather, they’re written on bits of scrap paper or in an old spiral book that I either misplace or file away, forgetting that indeed there is a list in there I might like to have a look at … I find little grocery lists folded into my wallet (brown rice, org. broccoli, tofu, almonds, laundry detergent was a recent one) or stuffed into my work bag to scatter like the snow we’ll never see in San Francisco when I pull out my bus card as I get on the bus. And yet I rarely forget anything I want to make or procure. Is it some sort of divine intervention? Or more likely my neurotic list-making brain also mentally files them away so I can never forget …

I like making lists during this time of year. It’s so much more fun than at any other time. Rather than a to-do of drop books off at the library, scrub the baseboards, take out the composting, my lists are full of delightful ideas such as lingonberry jam compote (??), look into making those nut/nougat cookie things you made last year [recipe copied out a cookbook in a store on Haight Street one chilly afternoon, so good luck to me if I can remember any more ingredients than the brown sugar], flourless peanut butter cookies — yes! Soon enough I’ll return to the humdrum weekday meals lists, but for now I’m trying to enjoy this time.

Also what I’m enjoying right now is soup. It’s cold here in San Francisco (I wore gloves today which for me = cold and yes, it is not as cold as East Coast-cold but it’s pretty cold for here). Last night I ate butternut squash + white bean soup prepared by my lovely husband of two months (today!), which is a testament to how much he loves me because he can hardly bear to look at orange squash without cringing (a childhood trauma involving rotted pumpkins in the garden is responsible for this), and the night before I ate a chard and white bean (theme?) stew made from the last of the chard from my guy at the market. I know it’s really time for kale but I’m still clutching onto that chard …

So when it’s chilly, I want soup. Also, when I’m busy with all the list-making and actual baking and wrapping up homemade jam and watercoloring my holiday cards I don’t have a lot of time to chop and dice. Soup is something that’s fairly easy, because you have to do a bit of work to begin with but then your stove does a lot of work to finish it off while you’re doing other things. Plus, if you cram it with vegetables, as I do, it’s nourishing, healthful, and yes and of course, delicious.

I made a cauliflower-leek soup for the first course for the Thanksgiving dinner, although we didn’t end up eating it that night because out of the woods (literally — OK, it was carried through from the neighbors’ house) emerged a gorgeous, creamy butternut squash soup that (most of us) lapped up quickly and happily. The following afternoon we planned to head out to the coast to sleep out for the night, but we first we ate cauliflower soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to fortify ourselves for the 6+ mile hike.

This is a simple soup, but it’s dreamy. Lots of leeks, garlic, and onions sauteed until soft, then a lot of cauliflower and good vegetable stock are added in. It’s all eventually pureed until smooth; no dairy here, yet it’s remarkably rich. I’m thinking of making another pot for the weekend, for after-party sipping and Sunday afternoon post-napping, when a few of those lists can be tossed — at least for this year.

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[Along the Pacific coast, November 2011.]

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety—

~Mary Oliver

I am thankful for this rainy day.
I am thankful for this beautiful state in which I live.
I am thankful for this good food, that I have enough when so many do not.
I am thankful for my friends and family.
I am thankful for sweet dogs.
I am thankful for the Pacific Ocean (and all the oceans of the world).
I am thankful for pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies.
I am thankful for KFOX (and classic rock in general).
I am thankful for my unfailingly nice and lovely husband who also never fails to make me laugh or fetch me a cup of tea in the morning.
I am thankful for that most of my meal today originated within 100 miles of where I sit right now.
I am thankful for my two wonderful San Francisco farmers’ markets, both within walking distance of my house.
I am thankful that I had a fun and awesome wedding and I am equally as thankful that it. is. over.
I am thankful for coffee (always). And also! Pots of tea.
I am thankful running and I are friends again.
I am thankful for possibility
I am thankful for Maine in winter and summer, too.
I am thankful for tomatoes in season, butternut squash pureed with maple syrup, and organic potato chips.
I am thankful for this life.

[In the woods, November 2011.]

* Today, Thanksgiving, is one of my one of my very favorite days of the year, mainly because it combines two things very close to my heart: food (and the cooking of it) of course, as well as the giving of thanks — or, really, the feeling grateful-for. Is there a better feeling in the world than gratitude? (OK maybe love, but that’s something better suited to February ruminations and anyway I sort of think the two are closely related.)

Some days I swear I wake up simply grateful to be, cozy and quiet tucked up in my comfortable bed with the morning grey-light filtering through the windows, knowing I have good food to eat for breakfast, and, if I’m particularly lucky, a Sunday morning New York Times waiting for me downstairs. I mean, of course there are those days I rise on the wrong side of the bed and burn my toast or drink green tea because I’m out of milk and there is just no way I can drink my coffee without milk or cream. Of course there are those days. But in general I know I have it pretty good and I try not to take it for granted.

This morning it’s drippy and softly grey in West Marin, and we are going to make a cup of delicious coffee and take the dog up into the woods through the pine trees and back down again down the trail with a view of Tomales Bay to the left. I’ll come home and pull out the sweet potato-tahini dip, the cauliflower soup, the smoked salmon, the roasted butternut squash. I’ll drizzle olive oil over the turkey and slip it into the oven, crack open a bottle of sparkling wine to mix with pear nectar and pomegranate seeds, nibble a pumpkin cookie, and cross fingers this next year proves just as delicious and full of surprises as the last.

Happy Thanksgiving.

*Wishing you lots of good food, friends, and family today and every day.

[Tea, October 2011.]

How I love coffee; I sincerely could count the ways: 1. I love it for its little zing of caffeine that, once it enters my bloodstream, delivers a hit of euphoria that can’t be beat; 2. I love it because I usually procure it elsewhere, meaning that I don’t make it myself (I’m lazy about it, and frankly I don’t make the best cup of coffee. I’m OK with that.) and thus must make a special effort to go get a cup, thus making it a bit of an event, which is fun; 3. I love it for its flavor; 4. I love it because c’mon, it’s coffee …

But I’ve been taking a wee break from coffee recently, because I am a delicate flower whose stomach can’t handle the acidity coffee can so delightfully impart. Well, I’m not really a delicate flower but sometimes I fall out of habit with things and find they are not serving their original purposes — the caffeine instead serves unhappily to make me jittery, the special effort feels less special and more, well, effort — basically, I’m just not feeling it for coffee right now (woe!). And so I’ve turned to my old standby, tea, to get me by until coffee and I are back on track.

I usually drink tea brewed in cups, like in that photo above. (I took it awhile back when I was spending the weekend out of town.) I love the reflection of the sky in the liquid, the branches of the oak tree. And truly it was a lovely cup of tea, savored on a Sunday afternoon with nothing much to do except soak up the late fall sun and stretch out my toes after a few miles run on a nearby trail.

But let’s be real: most of the time I drink tea gulped down in the morning as I’m trying to work up the motivation to pry myself out my comfortable and cozy bed. I’m brushing the sleep from my eyes and rather crankily contemplating wardrobe options and dreading the chilly walk to the bus (fall doldrums, I have ‘em. Hopefully they’ll pass soon.). Meanwhile, the tea is used for necessary alertness rather than to create pleasure.

Once I get to work I make a cup of green tea yet again in-the-cup to eat with my oatmeal (this is the new thing; typically it’d be a cup of coffee to follow the early morning cup o’ black tea). If I’m feeling particularly daring I might have a second cup along with my mid-morning snack. Oh, my exciting life! But again, the tea is an accompaniment to work, my new friend alongside the keyboard and my trusty Sigg water bottle that is rapidly filled and emptied throughout the day (my beverages of choice include, in this order, water, tea [coffee usually], orange juice, Orangina, sparkling wine, red wine, beer, sparkling water). It’s all very utilitarian.

[Sunday, November 2011.]

Then, this weekend. I did have a few cups of coffee at brunch on Saturday at Nopa (I did!) which were scrumptious (as was the brunch) but which left me feeling a little too buzzed as I hadn’t had any coffee for a week. I jittered through dinner preparations (for four: roasted tomato and garlic soup, with a splash of milk added at the end; salad from the farmers’ market; stir-fry of chickpeas, broccoli, spinach, and feta cheese; fingerling potatoes baked with wild mushrooms in parchment with rosemary and thyme; a ‘fabulous’ — according to the guy at the fish market — piece of halibut baked with lemon slices and white wine –; flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream and strawberries) and luckily for me it was the ‘fall-back’ night because I stayed up too late reading due to all the buzzing. I swore off coffee once more.

And it’s not that I don’t like tea; I do. In fact I love it. Once upon a time my beloved Kate and I would slip down to Old Town Alexandria to the tearoom that was just around the corner from my brother’s second-floor apartment and linger long and happily over a pot or two of tea (and Branston pickle sandwiches, beans on toast, and the best scones I’ve eaten outside of Scotland). We were good friends before, of course, but those stolen afternoons drinking tea-pot tea sealed the deal for good and all. I think the tea pot in the photo above these paragraphs was obtained on a whim, again in Old Town, and I got a few matching cups and saucers, too, so enamored was I with the idea of making a pot of tea.

I do this all too rarely these days.

And so here’s where I get to the point of all this. Sunday afternoon, after a work-morning, after cleaning the house top to bottom (nearly), after doing laundry, after running myself out to the Pacific and back, my new husband suggested making a pot of tea (reinforcing once more why I’m lucky). To actually sit down with cups and pour it out like proper civilized people. To savor the moment and the tea and simply be. As I thought it a rather fantastic suggestion I immediately obliged. I brought out my Ahwhanee china and a few digestive biscuits and we sat in the blue chairs by the window and drank our pot of tea. And lo, it was good.

Here’s the thing: I know I can’t do this every day. Sit down with a pot of tea — or even a pot of coffee — and read the paper or talk or just be quiet — no, that’s a luxury to be delved into on free (read: weekend) afternoons when I’ve finished (or not) the 100 things or more I ‘have’ to do. But I wonder … what if I got up a little bit earlier? Or made a pot after work to drink as the early dark falls down? Is it more about the tea or the ritual of it — the slowing down to carve out enough time warm the pot, to select the tea, to let it steep, to fill up the pot once more. In the rush of the days — which are often filled with humdrum tasks — a pot of tea is a surprising gift. I go on and on and on about savoring the little things, the ordinary moments, but tell truth that’s usually what we’re faced with every day. Why not make them special?

I suggest starting with tea. To make a proper pot, I refer you to George Orwell’s essay, A Nice Cup of Tea, published in 1946, which argues that “tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot.” Or if that’s too detailed, try

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I woke up from strange (seriously, strange) dreams to the sound of pouring rain, but miraculously the sun came out and is now shining so strongly I had to close the blinds. I am working from home so in the early-morning gloom I was particularly happy to remember the loaf of delicious Acme whole wheat walnut bread I’d picked up yesterday at the Ferry Building. (To eat with homemade blackberry jam, of course.)

So I made tea and toast for breakfast (I may have also had it for lunch) and left my pajamas on for awhile.

Then I carefully placed a flourless chocolate cake (or, a ‘Gateaux Victoire’) in its water bath to bake for a dinner party tomorrow night.

(Here it is post-oven.)

And I popped popcorn for caramel corn for my sweetie, because he likes it and because why not? I haven’t really cooked in a sort of leisurely way in a long time — and I even, gasp, pulled out my real camera, which felt very, very good — and Fridays are nice days for doing that in between all the editing. It was a bit of a massive work-week, and so I’m gently sliding into the weekend with some sun, some cake, and some more tea. There are two full days coming up to relax and enjoy.

The holidays loom. To ease the bite — or as an edible gift — consider making from-scratch caramel corn. It’s pretty simple, tastes better than anything you can buy, and is sure to please. It could even provide Thanksgiving-cooking sustenance if you can turn your thoughts there already. I’m trying to; the only thing I’m sure of right now is that I’ll be baking sweet potato biscuits and making cauliflower soup. But after all, there’s still a few more weeks …

For now:

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[San Francisco, October 2011.]

Fall: utterly, truly. The light is fantastic, slanting against San Francisco’s buildings in the late afternoons and curling around the cyprus trees in Alamo Square Park. Last Saturday I picked roma tomatoes and early girls, the very last of the season, from my parents’ neighbor’s garden (Linus the cat keeping us company), and basil, and lemon cucumbers, and so this week my fridge is full of roasted tomato and garlic soup, homemade tomato sauce, and pesto. The other night I baked my ‘make everything better’ cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip) and the house smelled deliciously of caramelizing butter and sugar, with a sweet under note of roasted cauliflower. Season’s change.

I love fall. I love October.

It’s not just because it’s my birth-month. October in California can be heart-breakingly beautiful. It can rain a lot, and some years it does, but if we’re lucky it’s a year like this one when the sun shines almost every day, the sky is that deep October-blue (I swear it’s only this particular shade during this particular month), and the breeze is mild. I remember an October about six years ago when I was spending time in Northern California as a sort of hiatus making the decision about whether I would finally pack up and move from Washington DC. I was training for the Marine Corps Marathon, my first, and spent hours and hours outside in the cool (and not-so) sun running up and down the back roads of Sebastopol and in the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was one of the Octobers we’re experiencing this year: not a drop of rain, the sky that inimitable blue, the days stretching long and full of sun. I don’t miss that time at all, because it was not a particularly good time, but I do miss the empty days a bit. I miss being outside so much.

Still, time has expanded again for me, and I am grateful for it. And so I chew over what to fill it with — running, of course; writing letters, yes; mailing off a few small packages, absolutely; contemplating the upcoming holidays, um, gulp; considering what to cook next, always. Also this week I made a sort of quinoa risotto with (frozen!) peas and chopped red onion and wilted chard and sharp cheddar cheese that I must, I really must, make again. It was delicious. I made it for dinner the day after my birthday — a treat to myself — and then I further treated myself to the cupcake my friend had procured for me from Miette as a belated birthday present:

[Chocolate cupcake from Jerilee, October 2011.]

I need to make a homemade batch soon, as well as more of that risotto ….

And I want to make

cauliflower soup
roasted butternut squash with maple syrup and sea salt (sorry, husband, but I must)
white bean and kale baked in the oven with parmesan
apple and pear ice cream
a tarte tatin
the perfect loaf of bread
vegetable-laden pizza from scratch
homemade ricotta cheese, and yogurt

[Milk and cookies, October 2011.]

But there are other things on my mind this October, when I’m not playing with the Thanksgiving menu (!) and dreaming about more roasted vegetable gratins. Specifically, writing projects and the reality that it’s time to dive back in. I wish I could show you the number of drafts I have in various folders and states of completion; suffice to say there are a lot. A very lot. (OK, maybe it’s better that you can’t see them. I would rather not see them myself.) Some are food-related, some are California-related, some are related to neither one of these things — but all of them are waiting not-so-patiently for me to pick up the thread I dropped during the last six months.

Truth is, I’ve been trying to work on a book proposal for … oh, let’s say it’s been a quite awhile. I wrote one a few years back and it seemed promising and even made its way out into the world but then there was that whole market crash and the publishing world sort of froze and alas it slunk off quietly to be retired as yet another one of my projects that didn’t go anywhere. It took me a bit of time to work up the mental energy to start another one, but I did … and then insecurity got in the way. (How writers are plagued with insecurity. I can barely even call myself a ‘writer’, even, it’s that bad.) What have I got to say, after all? So much has been said already; can my voice bring anything important to the mix? Or am I just contributing to more background noise? I don’t want to do simply to do — I want it to matter, to have meaning (see also why I got into journalism all those years ago).

I could write about vegetarian cooking; I could write about vegan baking; I could write about California and San Francisco and coming home and venturing out and about all the beautiful places I love in this state; I could write about how I cook not because it is this hugely meaningful thing but because it makes me feel good and I like to feed people (yes, please) and there is a peculiar satisfaction that comes from turning ordinary vegetables into something marvelous that transcends description; I could write about the bits and pieces that make up a life, punctuated by the meals created and consumed; I could write stories about living in this particular corner of the world — Northern California, but my Northern California — and the food that is grown and made and cooked here. But … does anyone really want to read any of that? Can you make that into something … more?

Lately I’ve been reading books about the West — the west as it was once, all forest and granite and desert and shore-into-sea, which is the same but different from the way it is now — written by Timothy Egan and Wallace Stegner and Steinbeck (I’ve even contemplated revisiting Norman Maclean, though he wrote not of the coastal west but of rivers and pine trees) because of the spare cleanliness of the prose, the images there. I fell down deep into “Angle of Repose” this summer and wanted never to climb out — I brought it along on our Yosemite trip, lugging the heavy tome with me as is my backpacking tradition — and I can imagine myself writing in a similar vein about San Francisco as it was just before the earthquake (well, I guess I have done this, but that draft also ground to halt due to my insecurity that I have no idea what I’m doing when I try to write fiction). Or the little towns across the bridge and up north; I long to write about them, too, all that history and magic that still exists (just go out to Pierce Point Ranch on the edge of Tomales Bay and tell me you can’t see the children who went to school there, probably slightly sullen they weren’t allowed out into the crashing day to run down to the ocean below but instead had to read about the Revolutionary War). California is my place, as you know, but dare I even hope to fit myself into the legion of writers who have and do write about it so well?

Well, we all know this is not a train of thought to let continue down the track. The ‘muse’ is nonexistent in my opinion, and instead of waiting and wishing for her you must just get going. Hard work and perseverance makes a writing life, and a bit of luck, and a bit of time, and maybe a small amount of talent, too, but for the most part you just have to work work work. And push aside the lingering feelings of self-doubt that your idea is tired and that even if you had a good one you couldn’t explore it fully. That may be the most difficult bit of all.

(I am putting this here to remind myself, in the sunshine of late October 2011, that the only way to get over oneself is to keep going.)

Spring is often touted as the season of renewal and beginning, when the earth stirs from its long sleep and bursts into bloom and brush. But for me, despite the time change, the shorter days, the cooler temperatures that make me wistful for summer, fall has always been my time to start things. I may not be settling my pack onto my shoulders and lacing up my boots before planting my feet firmly on the John Muir Trail to hike its entirety but perhaps I can do it metaphorically, this beautiful October. I can sharpen the proverbial pencil, square my shoulders, take a deep breath, look ahead, set off. I can take up the work I’ve let drift, and begin again.

And so I will.

[Northstar at rest, October 2011.]

After all that, after brushing off the crumbs and packing away the dress and wistfully wishing the flowers adieu and trying not to get toooo weepy saying good-bye to beloved family and friends who live far (too far, darn it!), we went north to the mountains for a few days. It’s amazing how exhausted I felt after a week of (almost non-stop) talking, a few intense days of baking and making a cake, organizing dinners, driving to and fro, trying to remember to bring everything I wanted to bring, surviving on little sleep and not enough coffee (I just couldn’t sleep well for days; could you? But it didn’t much matter after all.), and attempting to wrap my mind around a life-changing event. It was so much fun, YES, but it was also kind of a Big Deal.

It was so quiet in Tahoe — or rather, more accurately, Truckee, which is on the north shore — that I sunk down deep into it and am still there a bit if only in memory. And it was so marvelous. One day it rained, so we borrowed umbrellas from the front desk and hiked up the mountain anyway to find a little lake, carrying bottles of water in our pockets and thinking about lunch (or maybe it was just me that was thinking about lunch). We ate delicious veggie burgers and fries and big salads and lots and lots of cheese and swam and drank champagne in front of a (fake) fire at two o’clock in the afternoon. I slept and slept and would still be sleeping if the sun hadn’t come out and it was time to go for more veggie burgers and lemonade and then the long trip back to the city …

And so here I am, back to ‘normal’ life again with the sun shining in San Francisco, an enormous pot of roasted tomato and garlic soup in the fridge at home, a soy latte nearly digested, and a bowl of quinoa and chard and tofu waiting for me for lunch. Has it really been over a week since being in that quiet, that sweet, clean air? Has it really been two weeks since I baked that behemoth of a wedding cake and squeezed too many lemons to count to stir into eggs and sugar to make lemon curd? Has it really been over a month since I canned all that blackberry(/huckleberry) jam?

Oh time, you fickle friend …

[Just before, October 2011.]

I thought about doing a Wordless Wednesday post with photos from October 8, 2011 (a.k.a. My Wedding Day ™), but in truth I didn’t take that many. Alas! I told my photographer — the fabulous Andi Hatch; Bay Areans, please look her up for any wedding or portrait needs as she is charming, cheerful, sweet, and incredibly professional and talented — that I’d considered walking down the wee ‘aisle’ with my camera as the only necklace I’d need or want (she laughed), but I thought that it might be too distracting if I was taking photos of the sun, the light on the white building, the shimmer of the grass at the same time I was saying some vows and, y’know, getting married and all …

(Anyway, there are many more talented photographers out there than I could ever hope to be, and I was lucky enough to have a few of them shooting in both a professional and friend capacity — bless the photographers in my life who I know and love and who decided, after all, to not leave their cameras in the car. (And bless me for inviting them, no?))

But I did manage to grab a few, one of which is that one above, taken just after Kate brought up glasses of sparkling wine for us to drink during the few minutes we had in between putting on our dresses and waiting to go downstairs. We sat on the window seat and sipped a little and me at least felt remarkably calm. I feel that cool breeze still: It was a glorious day, the windows were flung open to let in Indian Summer — tinged with a bit of fall, for it is October after all –, the sun kept shining despite our proximity to the coast and I could see people arriving below. I wanted to hold on to that moment forever, the just before. I took a deep breath and felt the breeze and sun and friends and what was coming next and I do believe that time stopped its rushing, just for a second. And so I am grateful.

[The cake! Photo by my dear Randy Wentzel, October 2011.]

I don’t really want to go back and do it again because the day was perfect as it stands from start to finish, sun all the day-long and good cheer and happiness all ’round. But … I might like to see my cake once more, for despite a slight Tower of Pisa-like quality it stood firm until the time came to cut it up (quickly, and the tiers were whisked apart in a flash, probably so as to avoid any catastrophe. Note to self: better shoring up of the layers next time.), another thing for which I’m mightily grateful. It gave me a slight thrill every time I passed it by (I made that!), though if only we’d spent just a few more hours together in our finery … It was perhaps not my prettiest cake, but it was certainly my largest: five tiers, four of which were yellow filled with alternating ribbons of lemon curd and blackberry jam, and one of which was a chocolate cake filled with a simple chocolate ganache. If the buttercream looked a bit rough it tasted darned good. In my book that’s the main thing.

And lest I forget to mention the additional masses of cake, there was also Emily’s beautiful flourless chocolate cake, of which I tasted not one bite (!!), as well as an English fruit cake heavily saturated with brandy made by my mum-in-law; I didn’t taste that one, either. (Truth: I hardly tasted my own other than a small mouthful; luckily there were leftovers.)

So I guess if I did get to do it all over again I might 1. eat more cake and 2. … Well, I can’t really think of anything else I’d do differently.

[The morning after, October 2011.]

Though I proclaimed all along that I’m not really a ‘wedding person’, I must be honest and admit I did care about certain things, and I did want to have a hand in as many of the details as possible. No, I couldn’t cook the dinner myself — believe me, I sort of wanted to — but it could be made up of things that reflect what I like to think is my ‘food aesthetic’: simple, fresh, as local as possible. To that end, there was lots of salmon, simply roasted, as well as chicken, a delectable vegan vegetable curry, perfectly steamed and salted cauliflower (of course), salad with greens from the farm down the road, roasted fingerling potatoes, and good bread and butter. If I obsessed mildly over some of the paper goods they were so pretty and somehow I wrangled lavender into the picture, too. We hand-made the place cards, the table markers, the cakes, the jam, the playlist … it was a simple affair at its heart, but I think the sun, the candle-lit dinner, and the presence of all of our nearest and dearests elevated the evening into something special.

And while I am rather hopeless with flowers — well, I can cram a bunch of sweet peas from the farmers market into my largest vase and place it just so — there’s no doubt they are a major component that helps to prettify and make special. Luckily for me, one afternoon back in March or so, my mom and I were in Petaluma perusing some of those aforementioned pesky paper goods (it must be done, though I fought it along the way — my free time!). We happened upon the card for Fallon Anderson, who is based in that farm-centric stretch between Sebastopol and Petaluma — sort of in the wilds of Sonoma County a bit — and from first meeting until the end of the wedding night she came up with absolutely beautiful work that brought everything together. Blackberries in the arrangements! Heirloom roses! Gorgeous bouquets! Lovely flowers for my non flower girl flower girl! Silver vases and containers to present them all! Plus she is so passionate and committed to what she does and just plain nice. Please, call her. I am so serious.

What else to say? The day was wonderful due in no small part to the people we had helping us — who gets to have her florist floof out her dress just before going to say ‘I will’, and then hangs out afterward for a beer? Or whose photographer piles new husband and best lady into a car with the heat turned up high to go to Muir Beach for a photo shoot? And they both run small local businesses, which was incredibly important to me — and the reality that, by my firm dictate, we kept it (truly) as simple as we possibly could. Major events have so many moving parts, and I tried to streamline and organize everything beforehand as much as possible. Sure, not everything went as ‘planned’ but what does? It didn’t really matter.

Once I finished the cake I was able to sail through the rest of the time, enjoying the party at my parents’ house on Friday night and lingering over coffee at breakfast the morning-of. I always knew all would be well thanks to my support system (family and friends, you were invaluable), but also because I always kept in my mind the main purpose of it all: you and me. (OK, and maybe some champagne, too.)

Over a week later that is still the purpose of it all, and always will be.

Today I wish a little bit to be in the mountains still, to have all that cake-baking ahead of me still (yes … because I am crazy and like enormous baking projects), to be in that moment of just before. Yet I know if I’m fortunate there will be many more moments of just before.

I wonder what will come next.

[Wedding cake, October 2011.]

It’s hard to believe a week ago right now I was driving through the rolling hills of Northern California along Tomales Bay in the bright sun back to Sebastopol with Kate and Emily, talking of this and that (mostly, food, including quinoa) and sipping on an iced coffee from Toby’s, eagerly anticipating that night’s party. Eagerly anticipating, too, the next day’s wedding — but we were trying not to get ahead of ourselves. So rarely are we all together it was a gift just to have that hour-long trip on a Friday afternoon, all of us experiencing that funny combination of sleepiness and nervous energy. I tried to appreciate it as such, though a week out, I am wistful for it today. Still.

I got married last weekend — how strange to type that out: I got married last weekend. And so married I am now: for real and for always. It is a thrilling, marvelous thought.

People say your wedding day passes in a blur, that you will hardly remember it at all, and some of that is true but. But. It’s not always so. And it was such a lovely day. Somehow — and I shall remain eternally grateful for this — I remember nearly every bit of it, from the morning run with Emily along the backroads to sitting around the table while Kurt made an omelet and we drank Hardcore Espresso coffees and ate bagels my dad had fetched, and then on to getting prettified in town and devouring lunch in the car on 101 South on the way to the wedding listening to (of course) classic rock in a caffeinated haze. And arriving and seeing my boss and her partner having a beer in the pub and chatting with them … my friend and officiant arriving (thankfully!) early and how glad I was to see him … Emily putting together my cake she and my brother had ferried in from the city in its five (!) tiers … slipping into my dress and having Kate and my new niece do up the buttons and getting ready together … drinking a clandestine glass of champagne whilst watching guests arrive from my room above … sitting on the window seat and hugging the amazing girl who did the gorgeous flowers and affirming we are friends, like really …

And all the rest of it, too: the hilarious and fun ceremony, hiking up my dress and walking out to Muir Beach for photos after and lunging for my silly veil as it nearly blew away in a gust of wind, hugging nearly every single person who came, most of whom I’ve known for years and years, the delicious dinner, the beautiful cakes, dancing to ‘Rude Boy’ (our Yosemite backpacking anthem), Kurt putting his arm around me every so often, all the sweet speeches, and, oh yes, the incredible feeling of peace that comes with marrying the best person for me, the only person for me, really, and how lucky I feel, still and always.

[Cake, sliced, October 2011.]

We got married at the Pelican Inn in Muir Beach, as place that has long been ‘our place’ and which was really the only spot we could imagine having a wedding. It’s a little faux British pub perched near the beach and just up the road from Stinson — we had our ceremony on the lawn and cocktails after, before moving inside to eat by candlelight (happily, most vegetables and the bread came from the Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center just next door). After a few days of rain, the sun shone and it wasn’t even too cold (you never know along the coast); Northern California put on a show for my out-of-town visitors and I am so glad it did.

It was mainly a community effort, as the best ones often are: my mom made her famous spanikopita to serve with the appetizers; our wonderful brothers read their assigned poems as only they could do (and a spontanous reading by my sister-in-law completed it all) as well as did countless little tasks; my mum-in-law made an English fruit cake and Emily made a flourless chocolate cake; my new husband (!) hand-painted each place card; our aunts and uncle and cousins provided invaluable moral support; old friends who arrived earlier in the week provided good company as I finished the cake; my beloved best lady was a whirlwind of energy and good spirits (as was her husband).

And then of course there was all that jam, which became the unofficial theme of the wedding … but I will let my NPR story detail that a bit more as I’ve already gone on about it here (note: make the jam cake).

What I am left with, along with just a smidge of cake, is an enduring feeling of love — that day, and the days leading up to The Day, I simply felt surrounded by love. I was buoyed by it. I kept saying thank you probably ad naseum. But it’s really all I can still say, inarticulate as I sometimes can be — just, thank you. I hope I never forget that feeling of gratefulness; I don’t think I will.

If it won’t bore anyone too much I will probably be spilling out little memories as time goes on and it settles a little more … it’s still so fresh. We had a few days up in Tahoe just afterward to lounge and swim and drink champagne while the rain came softly down outside. My husband (!) had to go to China for work soon afterward (sob!) so I am in Sebastopol for a few days visiting with my parents and uncle who is here from Florida. It occurred to me today that I haven’t cooked in a week, so tonight I will: roast chicken, mashed potatoes, sauteed shallots and green beans, a big salad, roasted cauliflower, a vegan pear-apple galette. Simple things, but that is my wont. We’ll drink cold white wine — it’s very hot in Sonoma County this week — and eat leftover wedding cake and remember, just a little bit more …

Recipes, soon, and hopefully more photos, too. Did I mention? It was really a fantastic day.

On Sunday the day rose up grey and gloomy and I heard the distinct patter of rain outside as I burrowed my head deeper under the blankets and reminded myself there was no need to get up early; weekend mornings, at least when I’m not going to yoga, are for sleeping in. So I did a bit — ’til nearly 9. It was delicious and I’d like to repeat that again very soon.

But after the New York Times was fetched from downstairs and tea was drunk and I’d half-way started on the Style section there was a niggling at the back of my mind. Pancakes, a little voice (whose?) whispered. You know you need to use up the rest of the buttermilk. The frozen blueberries in the freezer. Make pancakes …

So after a generous gulp of the rest of the tea in my cup I hopped out of bed — though at the same time I tried to be surreptitious; I wanted what I was about to do to be somewhat of a surprise –, put the kettle on for more tea (green this time; I’m off the coffee for a bit, though I do miss it), and hunted through the cupboard for vanilla, cornmeal, a pinch of cinnamon, sea salt. I sipped and sifted and added a good glug of vanilla with the classical station as accompaniment. I whisked a few eggs to fry up separately and lamented the lack of vegetarian breakfast sausage.

And so I cooked a batch of pancakes.

Saturday mornings were pancake-mornings when I was growing up; my dad used to make his special recipe — incorporating oats, honey and cornmeal — for pancakes almost every weekend, and we clamored for them when he was out of town. In season, he would pile in fresh blueberries picked the afternoon before from the bushes growing in the backyard; in the winter we would eat them plain, or with the last frozen bits of summer’s preserved bounty.

Alas, somewhere along the way, I lost my taste for the things. I am more of an oatmeal-eater, a whole-wheat toast smeared with peanut butter and jam sort of a diner, and I am usually not interested in eating a big breakfast of heavy, bready sweets. I’ll let the occasional egg slip in once in awhile, but my standard work-a-day breakfast is a banana, a cup of green tea (just lately), and a bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit (boring I may be, but at least I’m reliable).

But every so often I get seized with a breakfast notion. Perhaps the idea for cherry muffins if I happen to have a lot of cherries on hand, or vegan blueberry muffins, or browned butter banana bread with plums, or whatever. And even though I might skip pancakes or waffles on a regular basis I don’t mind treating myself once in awhile, especially when the kitchen smells delectable enough to lure unwitting fiances to the dining room, paper in hand.

And how did Sunday’s pancakes taste? Light enough for the pancake-averse and just slightly gritty from the cornmeal with a hint of vanilla and plump and juicy with blueberries. The buttermilk added delectable moisture (which is essential if one, ahem, wanders away for a few moments to set the table and returns to find her pancake a bit overdone) and its delicate tang balanced the sweetness of the berries. They were not especially beautiful, my pancakes, but even I, who typically avoids such things, couldn’t get enough.

We ate our pancakes with warmed maple syrup and spoonfuls of blackberry jam — the blackberry jam I swore I was sick of after canning all those jars, but the thing about that jam is that it’s really good and it’s difficult not to eat it. I wrote an article for NPR about it, in fact — publication date TBD — which had encouraged me to incorporate it into a few different recipes, including a gorgeous blackberry jam cake and a batch of lemon sorbet. I’m thinking the next time I make pancakes I might stir some jam into the batter, too — just to see.

This coming Sunday begins the massive cake-baking project so breakfast may simply be toast gulped down in a hurry. Then again, you never know …

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