A Revelation in Caramel

Since Mercina and Glorianna are busy with TEDxYale, I am going to fill the void with something way sweeter: Caramel sauce.  Not just any caramel sauce. The best caramel sauce you have or will ever taste. No joke. Bar none. End of story.

I'm a sucker for caramel. I always have been and I fear I always will. Something about the nutty, rich, sweetness of almost carbonized butter fat and sugar makes that diabetes inducing, artery clogging, euphoria crazed trip to the ICU seem almost worth it ... actually, it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it at all...  hum ...

But this caramel sauce is particularly amazing, largely due to a secret ingredient that will help you get that toasty, roasty yumminess every time. Now sometimes my sisters think my secret ingredients are crazy (though I must note  -- actually, I don't have to note it, I just want to note it in order to make a point and because I'm feeling the teensie weensiest bit snotty -- the last time this happened, a recipe just like mine turned up in Martha Stewart Living a few weeks later), but don't judge until you try this.

{via}

Charity's Unexpected Caramel Sauce

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup cream

4 tablespoons butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp soy sauce

Place brown sugar, cream and butter in sauce pan on medium heat. Stir frequently for about 7-10 minutes -- until sauce begins to thicken or til it reaches 170 on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and soy sauce. Mix vigorously. Serve immediately or allow to cool.

Eat with ice cream, bread pudding, cream puffs, cake, a spoon, cereal, you name it. It will taste better. Mine is still good after sitting in the fridge for 3 weeks. I'll let you know how much longer it lasts.

Vagabond

Recently my gut has been very much here in DC and my mind has been extremely occupied with thoughts in Denver, so it complicates matters a bit that my body has been roaming like a vagabond. Premal and I were just in Florida, then we spent a long weekend in Puerto Rico (where these pictures were taken), I’m off to Texas for a long week at the beginning of March, and then we’re going to India this April.  But I hope that’s it. I’m already beginning to miss DC, and our move is still four months away. So while gallivanting is fun, I’m going to make sure I have time to reach closure in my long-term relationship with this capital city.  

a song for a traveler

A Foodventure For A Cold Day: Hazlenut Speculoos Cookies

Flu season rages on and coupled with the current cold snap, I've been spending a lot of time in my house. We've been moving (which looks a lot more like Yoni moving both of us) and after Yoni's moved, he loves to sit down to some cookies and milk. The problem is while I love to cook, I'm not much of a baker. Maybe I don't like to follow directions. Maybe it's just not my gift. Either way, Yoni has been a cookie-less spouse since we were wed.

But last time we were in Cleveland, I had a cookie that changed they way I thought about baking. It was from Zoss Bakery in Cleveland Heights. It tasted like roasted hazelnuts in cookie form. I HAD to recreate it. When we got home, we had a bag of hazelnuts from trader joe's in the cupboard, eggs in the fridge and ... well ... the results blew my mind.   

You'll need ... 6 eggs whites, 2 cups hazelnuts, 1 cup confectioners sugar, 4 tablespoons sugar, one tsp. vanilla extract, one half teaspoon salt (optional), and a ziplock or pastry bag.

1 Place 2 cups of hazelnuts or filberts in your food processor or blender with 1 cup confectioners sugar (this can be made by putting 1/2 cup sugar in blender for about 30 seconds). Pulse until it's a flour-like consistency. 

2 Beat 6 egg whites with a half teaspoon salt (optional) and a half cup sugar til you have stiff peaks.

3 Gently fold vanilla extract and hazelnut mixture into the egg whites. 4 When it's mixed, put batter into a pastry bag or a zip lock bag. If using the ziplock, snip about 1/3 of an inch of the bottom left corner. 5 Pipe onto a cookie tray lined with parchement paper. Cookies should be about 2 inches apart. 6 Let sit for 30 minutes and preheat oven to 325. After 30 minutes, place cookies in oven. 

7 Cook for 18-20 minutes or until slightly golden around the edges 8 When done, Cool for another 20 minutes.

9 This step is TOTALLY optional, but there is a fantastical spread popularly known as Cookie Butter originally called speculoos. Imagine if the best little cookies you ever ate were the consistency of peanut butter. It is amazing. It will change your world and your dress size. I get mine at Trader Joe's but I first had it from the Wafels&Dinges guy in NYC. Once the cookies are cool, spread them with about a little less than a tablespoon of the stuff and top with another cookie. You can also use chocolate, custard, caramel, whatever suits your fancy.

10 EAT! These are wonderful for tea or dessert in front of your post-Valentine's day flowers or painting. You could also eat one while reading Piper's new post on her blog A Matter of Life and Breath. We're both Colorado girls and share a lot of friends (fun) and medical challenges (not so fun) and she's great.

11. Stay healthy, eat cookies and wash your hands!

Egg, Cream Cheese, and Orange Marmalade -- Lifetime Original Story

Cast

Soundtrack by

The moment Egg was laid, he was abandoned. His dad, if he even existed, left long before Egg was born, and his mother didn't want a kid -- she thought it would mess up the "free-range" lifestyle she'd gotten so used to over the years. He was accustomed to not having anyone looking out for him. For awhile, Egg stayed in a communal home with eleven other kids in situations much like his own; they called it the "carton". It wasn't much, but at least he had his own room and a bit of company. Until he didn't. One moment he'd been checking his neighbor for spots, the next he was spread wide on a hot pan -- totally exposed and covered in butter. At that moment, Egg stopped being tough. At that moment, he was just a kid, alone and scared.

***

Cream Cheese was a guy trying to figure stuff out. His mom and her boyfriend had given him 3 hours to move out of the foil wrapper he shared with them, and he was a man without a plan. Orange Marmalade was a pampered princess prone to rash decisions and longing to experience life outside the jar. She heard about Cream Cheese's situation through their mutual friend Table-Knife; she teasingly begged him to invite Cream Cheese to split rent with her on a chic tortilla she had found in the Counter District. Table-Knife relayed the message.

Much to everybody's surprise, Cream Cheese accepted.

They met on move-in day. Once T-Kn dropped them off at the tortilla and offered his goodbyes, they were left to the mandatory familiarity with which they now found themselves confronted. They sat in silence for several minutes, with nothing but the faint sizzling of butter in a distant frying pan to relieve them from their aloneness together. In an attempt to escape the wordless void into which he and Marmalade had stumbled, Cream Cheese started to stutter- "Th-thanks so much for offering to let me split. . . I mean share---"

"Oh come on," Marmalade interrupted him, "you're laying it on a bit thick, aren't you?"

"Sorry."

Thus began their life on the new tortilla. They lived together as strangers live together, because that's just what they were to each other -- strange. He was dairy, she was fruit; she liked a night out with her 'sugar and spice' types, while he hung with a gang of savory characters; he listened to Two Chains, she preferred Taylor Swift. They never spoke to each other about anything personal, each keeping closely to their respective halves, both physical and emotional, of the tortilla they shared.

***

The kitchen timer had just struck 5 minutes when Marmalade heard noises above the tortilla. She looked up to see the slatted green underside of a non-stick spatula. "Cream Cheese! Did you order something? It's here!" -- she bellowed towards the other side of the tortilla. "No, what is it?" he asked as he, too, looked up towards the spatula. As it neared, the frayed and glistening gold-white edges of a freshly fried egg -- steam still rising off it, became visible around the corners of the spatula. "Then where did it com---" she couldn't finish her sentence before the egg plopped onto the middle of the tortilla.  As they looked at the shining, scared yolk staring around its new surroundings, both Cream Cheese and Marmalade saw in it the meanest parts of themselves laid bare. Cream Cheese saw days of fear and uncertainty and abandonment; Marmalade saw the unrelenting, excruciating desire to be sincerely loved. And in that moment, a beautiful thing happened. Marmalade and Cream Cheese rose to embrace the egg and each other. They forgot awkwardness and haughtiness and instead focused wholly on comforting another edible thing, and Egg felt really safe for the first time in his life. The tortilla folded together in an embrace filled with tenderness and butter and warmth and Cream Cheese and Marmalade and Egg. That day, they had discovered the sweet savor of true friendship.

Too Long; Didn't Read: Sandwich butter-fried egg in tortilla spread with half cream cheese, half marmalade. Fry in more butter. Eat.

Great minds think alike

The contents of the Valentine's Day package I sent to Tom -

The contents of the Valentine's Day package Tom sent to me - 

I guess we have similar tastes :-) 

(Or maybe we just like chocolate...)

To Love

Mimo, Didi and Momo

To hold. To honor.

To annoy. To exasperate. 

(To occasionally despise.) 

To commiserate. To alleviate.  To infatuate. 

To GROW. To be. 

LOVE isn't just a noun, it's a verb. 

To do oh so many things! 

It's not something to capture; 

It's something to lead us 

into the arms and 

up to the vistas that await 

and to wait when waiting seems futile. 

To help when help's not wanted.

To admit you're wrong.

To Sing. To hope.

to love in small ways and 
WRIT LARGE
to live. TO LEARN. 
to love. 

S is for Ssssssssssssnake

Last night we rang in the Lunar New Year at our brother's house. We welcomed the Year of the Snake with dumplings, sweet melon tea and lots of good company. 

According to legend, Snakes are introspective, refined and rational -- which made me laugh, because we certainly don't have any of them at our house! I'm a Monkey, which means I'm talkative, eccentric and like new things. Which, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit, is pretty accurate....

Keep reading for a rundown on the other signs of the Chinese Zodiac. Does yours ring true?


DRAGON (2012, Willa)
Hot-headed, confident and ambitious, Dragons are also resourceful, valiant and enthusiastic. Dragons make good politicians and lawyers, and include the likes of Joan of Arc and Sigmund Freud.

RABBIT (2011, Liberty)
Rabbits are sweet, optimistic romantics who enjoy life to the fullest. They can be judgmental and snobby, but very faithful to friends and lovers. They make good designers and diplomats, or could follow in the footsteps of Henry V, Confucius or Einstein.

TIGER (2010, Phineas)
Tigers are sensitive, emotional and loving. They're fiercely competitive and eager to face challenges -- which might explain why Tigers, including Marilyn Monroe and Marco Polo, are inclined to pursue careers as race car drivers and matadors. Hmmmmm.

OX (2009)
Methodical, conservative and hard working, Oxen are born leaders (like Walt Disney and Richard Nixon). They can also be sulky, volatile and narrow-minded -- but in a good way, because they're very popular. Oxen excel at banking, real estate and farming.

RAT (2008, Hettie)
Charismatic, witty and smart, popular Rats make good broadcasters and entrepreneurs. Rats include Shakespeare, George Washington, and Gene Kelly -- who, on a bad day, apparently trend devious, exploitative, and greedy.

PIG (2007, Charity)
Sincere, friendly and diligent, Pigs supposedly make good "students" (is that a career?) and butchers (ironic much?). Sadly, Pigs are also lazy, materialistic and pigheaded -- like Arnold Schwarzenegger, (but also Fred Astaire and Ernest Hemingway).

DOG (2006, Glorianna)
Dogs are resourceful, resilient and reliable. They can also be nosy and anxious, and though the ranks of the Dogs include Ben Franklin and Liza Minnelli, they're better suited for careers as secret agents and clerics.

ROOSTER (2005)
Passionate and patriotic, Roosters are dreamers and extroverts. Bossy, aggressive impatient, they're born for the stage, like Dolly Parton, Eric Clapton and Katherine Hepburn.

MONKEY (2004, Kimber & Mercina)
Superficial and mischievous, Monkeys are magnetic but socially divisive -- those who aren't put off by their sly impudence love their wit and imagination. Monkeys are too restless for most traditional 9-5 jobs, but thrive as air traffic controllers and day traders.

SHEEP (2003)
Sensitive, artistic and kind, Sheep are charming company. They can be fussy and dependent, so Sheep do better when surrounded by other well-mannered people. They make good florists and cartographers, or could follow in the footsteps of Jane Austen or Lawrence Olivier.

HORSE (2002)
I'm married to a horse, so you don't have to tell me they're hard-working, hilarious and intelligent. And I would never say they're impatient or stubborn -- but others might. 

This little hole-in-the-Web has all sorts of funny, detailed predictions of what the Year of the Snake will bring to you!