Sometimes Looks Matter

Results of the entirely unscientific poll are in: people like the Chocolate Chocolate Chip Amish Friendship - what I described in a previous entry as "sin without the redemption." While there remain a few purists who prefer the plain Amish Friendship, the overwhelming response was, I liked the one with the chips. In other words, not only do the masses prefer sin, they like it to be studded with little chips of solid sin.

With Christmas looming near, I took to the kitchen yesterday armed with a 24-egg-count carton of Costco eggs. I baked from morning until quite past night (given that it's getting dark around here before 4pm). My Sunday passed in a blur of baking, punctuated by a little bit of living.

As it always goes for me in the kitchen, there were irregularities. For those who have been gifted the results of my Sunday efforts, fear not - these irregularities were merely cosmetic. But in baking, cosmetic irregularities are often noticed. I recall that I once made wonderful mini-cheesecakes to take to a law school class (why I am always toting desserts to inappropriate places, I do not know), but had made a poor choice in transport tupperware. The result: the mini-cheesecakes were squished, intertwined with their fruit toppings. I offered one to a classmate with the disclaimer, "They look bad but they are delicious."

He gave them one look and said to me, "Madwoman, sometimes looks matter."

I have never forgotten those words.

Sometimes looks matter.

I heard these words again after my first batch of plain Amish Friendship, which I can only describe with two words -

squashed shoe:



My baking had been proceeding all too normally when I realized at the end of the bake time that I had neglected to sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top of the loaves. Not a huge deal, but the bread is rather plain without the delightful sugary and crispy crust. Since the eight plain loaves were just about done baking, I knew the tops would be too dry at this point for the cinnamon sugar to adhere. So I did what any Madwoman would do.

I spritzed the tops of the loaves.

Let it be said that spritzing water while baking has many benefits. It creates steam in the oven, making heat distribute more quickly, and it helps keep the moisture level up. I recommend it while baking bread, for example. But what else should be said is that one should probably never spritz directly onto the rising surface of a baked good.

The cinnamon sugar stuck really well, but that brief moment of satisfaction dissipated quickly when the loaf started to deflate from the inside, no doubt confused and bogged down by the new and sudden moisture up top. As the loaves cooled, the situation only got worse until all the loaves reached the Squashed Shoe Stage. I suddenly had eight squashed shoes where eight loaves of Vanilla Amish Friendship had been before.

But sometimes catastrophe is the mother of invention. I selected two shoes that seemed to make a good pair, slathered a layer of Nutella between them for adhesion, and voila - Amish Friendship with Hazelnut Filling. Whether this tactic worked or not will be the subject of yet another very unscientific poll.

Stay tuned and find out whether Nutella can bridge The Gap Between Sin and Redemption.

Walla Walla, Where Have You Been All My Life?

Yesterday I had a profound experience.

As I often boast, I've been eating for a long time and often make the mistake of thinking that I've eaten it all, when in truth, I am only in the middle of a life-long pursuit to eat it all. After all, my palate still gets caught off guard on occasion. For example, seven years ago, I was very much taken aback by the sticky snotty look and taste of nato, Japanese fermented soy beans. That humbling experience has stuck with me.

Last night, BB re-introduced me to the sweet onion. I've seen these onions before lying in the next bin over from the regular onions at Costco. I've noticed mostly that they are slightly more expensive and more squatty in shape. I've even eaten them before but never clued into the sublime difference.

All onions are sweet, but sweet onions lack the level of sulfur that gives onions its characteristic bite. Nine times out of ten, I am sauteeing onions rather than eating them raw - probably because I'm not particularly fond of the sulfurous bite. Last night, in BB's salmon dip, I realized what I have been missing.

A raw sweet onion has all of the bright texture of a regular onion accented by crisp lingering sweetness. It can truly wake up a dip. I kept waiting for the onion to bite back, but it never did, and hence I kept on eating. The remaining flavors in my mouth were happy and pleasant - if push came to shove, this was a mouth that could still kiss!

Once again I am humbled by a simple root vegetable.

So for all of you lovers out there, get out your mistletoe and your sweet Walla Walla onions and make this Christmas delicious.

Don't Squeeze Me Today!

There's starter in my pocket.

That's right, there's Amish Friendship Starter in my coat pocket, a conglomeration of milk, sugar, and flour. Technically speaking, it is in a ziploc bag in my pocket. But you get the idea - squeezing me could be very dangerous.

Why am I running around Anchorage with Amish Friendship Starter (which by the way, looks basically like goo) in my pocket? I am taking the recipe's admonition against refrigeration to heart, and unfortunately, all of Anchorage is a giant refrigerator right now. I am aiming to deliver a batch of starter to an unsuspecting friend about to join the "Friendship Circle," but I had a series of errands today and left alone in a parked car, who knows what would have happened to the starter.

I shall not be responsible for the Death of Any Amish Friendship.

So I am doing the next logical thing - keeping it at room temperature in my pocket.

I am pleased to announce that by working hard to bake a total of four loaves in the last two days, I actually only have one starter to unload. The other one I will save for myself, get a sitter for it this weekend since I'm going away, and deal with next week. The last two loaves I tried a variation - chocolate pudding mix.

Having been cautioned by JaJa that the chocolate version isn't so chocolately, I substituted 3/4 c of sugar and 1/4 of unsweetened cocoa powder for 1 c of sugar. With the pudding mix, I felt as though the bread was sufficiently sweet already. I divided the batter into two loaves, and added 1/4 c chocolate chips to one of them just to kick up the chocolate factor. Various loaves were distributed yesterday and I am still waiting to hear the results of the public-at-large survey.

This morning I myself had a slice of the chocolate chocolate-chip loaf, and while decent, it doesn't seem to taste much different from the chocolate chocolate-chip muffins you can buy at Costco. Suffice it to say, that was not what I was aiming for. If the regular vanilla variety of Amish Friendship tastes like Sin and Redemption in One Bite, perhaps it can be said that the chocolate chocolate-chip loaf tastes like Just Cheap Sin In One Bite. It lacks the spiritual depth of its paler brother.

If the masses have a different opinion, you will be the soon to hear.

But for now, don't squeeze me today!

Battling the Darkness

What better way to battle the growing darkness than with cake! Like a Citrus-Scented Winter Solstice Cake Roll....



Would have looked much better on a shiny meat platter.

Have You Seen This Meat Platter?

LOST:
One shiny meat platter, about two feet long. Meat not included. Sentimental value. Please call if found.

Like people, sometimes food needs an accessory or two. This morning, when I reached for my trusty shiny meat platter to serve as the presentation dish for an office birthday cake, it was not in its normal storage spot in the cabinet. I then proceeded to turn the kitchen upside down looking for my shiny friend.

If I concentrate really hard, I realize that I have no idea whatsoever when was the last time I saw my meat platter. It was often used this summer at barbecues, and occasionally gets trotted out for receptions, but no recent memory of its being comes to mind. At the same time, at two feet, it is hard to misplace.

So my theory is that Mrs. Chao has taken my meat platter. The story of Mrs. Chao started over fifteen years ago, when my mom was running a steamed bun business out of our kitchen. Word got around that she was commercializing and soon, the orders started pouring in. My dad and I did our best to help out, mostly by eating Red Bean Buns that had failed to rise properly. But it soon became clear that my mom needed extra help - real help.

Perhaps tapping her Amway experience, my mom decided to get a friend involved, Mrs. Chao. Mrs. Chao was apparently a horrible cook, but sometimes those who are clueless in the kitchen can be good assistants as they will do exactly as you say. Looking back on this, perhaps my mom enlisted Mrs. Chao because she was less of an espionage risk. Whatever she learned in my mom's kitchen, it seemed doubtful Mrs. Chao could replicate it herself elsewhere.

One day, my mom was doing inventory (which was stored crammed into our family freezer) and noticed that she was short one hundred dumplings. How my mom could so precisely account for her dumplings, I don't know. She turned the kitchen inside and out looking for dumplings. I mean, a bag of one hundred dumplings does not just get up and walk out of the kitchen.

Or does it?

As they day wore on and dumplings remained MIA, my mom settled on a suspect - Mrs. Chao. Mrs. Chao had stolen her dumplings! One hundred of them! An inside embezzlement job -- a shrewdly calculated crime.

I personally wondered why Mrs. Chao would steal one hundred dumplings. I can't remember how my mom paid her for her help but certainly an arrangement could have been struck using dumplings as currency. (They are, after all, modeled after Chinese currency from the old days.) But my mom was sure - Mrs. Chao had stolen the dumplings, betraying her in a way she never thought a friend could. This was not the Amway way.

The next day, my mom found the dumplings. She had miscounted. Mrs. Chao was exonerated, but there must have been some kind of confrontation because I never saw Mrs. Chao after that. Shortly thereafter, the steamed bun business folded, and the kitchen was thankfully returned to ordinary family use.

To this day, the family often jokes about Mrs. Chao when we can't seem to find something.

"Where's the vacuum cleaner?"

"Maybe Mrs. Chao took it."

"Have you seen my favorite jacket?"

"I think Mrs. Chao is wearing it."

"Mrs. Chao has been stealing the socks out of the dryer again!"

Mrs. Chao was and still is everywhere. In fact, she followed me from LA when I moved to Alaska. My first year in the Little Yellow House, when our snow shovel disappeared, I cursed Mrs. Chao, waving my empty hands at the piles of snow.

"MRS. CHAAAOOO!"

I know that Mrs. Chao has my meat platter. Who can blame her given its wonderful size and shiny, mirror-like surface? If there is a platter to be coveted, it would be My Beloved Meat Platter. That Mrs. Chao is no fool.

Regardless, Mrs. Chao, if you're reading this, please give my meat platter back! I'll trade you a bag of dumplings.

Please Be My Amish Friend

Last week, I came back from the Thanksgiving holidays to find a beautiful loaf of bread on my kitchen counter. My dear friend JaJa had made my roommate and me a loaf of "Amish Friendship Bread."

Judging from the name, I figured it was probably plain basic white bread. But as I peeled away the foil and sampled a piece, I was stunned by the unconventional deliciousness that met my lips.

Amish Friendship Bread is a cinnamonny sweet bread, kind of like a banana nut bread except without the banana and nuts and much more delicious. It is simple in its looks - light coffee-colored crumb flecked with cinnamon - but the flavor is complex, full of depth, the kind of bread that encapsulates sin and redemption all in one bite!

I immediately wanted to know the recipe. And therein lies the rub.

The Amish Friendship Bread is made with a starter made of milk, sugar, flour, and I suppose whatever is in the air. I have worked with sourdough starters before and it is true that they require some degree of care and concern, but not much. A sourdough starter needs to be fed but can survive periods of dormancy. For example, legend has it that Dick Proenekke's historic sourdough starter sat dormant for ten years before the caretakers of his cabin poured off "the sludge" and started using it for hotcakes again. My own starters have started looking upset with me... maybe I should feed them soon....

As much trouble as it is caring for a sourdough starter, it is nothing compared to having a high-maintenance Amish Friendship Starter. This starter has a 10-day cycle which requires feeding, massaging, and abstention from metal utensils. (I have yet to figure out if this is just an Amish quirk or something about reactive metals.) I half expect the starter to ask me to take it on buggy rides in the countryside.

The recipe is as follows:

Amish Friendship Bread
DO NOT REFRIGERATE. IF AIR GETS INTO THE BAG, LET IT OUT & RE-SEAL.
Day 1: Do nothing.
Day 2-5: Mush the bag.
Day 6: Add 1 c sugar, 1 c flour, 1 c milk to the bag.
Days 7-9: Mush the bag.
Day 10: Follow directions below.

1. Poor entire contents of bag into non-metal bowl & use non-metal spoon. Add 1.5 c flour, 1.5 c sugar, 1.5 c milk. Stir until smooth.
2. Measure out 4 equal batters into ziploc bags -- 1 c each. These are your new starters. Keep them, give them away, or toss them.
3. Take what's left of the batter after removing the starters and add:

3 eggs
1 c oil
1/2 c milk
1 c sugar
2 c flour
1.5 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
1 large box of instant pudding
1 c chopped nuts, raisins, etc. [OPTIONAL]

4. Grease 2 large loaf pans.
5. Mix 1/2 c sugar and 1.5 t cinnamon. Sprinkle some of this mixture into the greased pans. Pour batter into pans and sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar on top.
6. Bake at 325F for 1 hour.

Although the Amish are not proud, their starter is not so modest. Through feedings, it propogates exponentially like a pack of rabbits.

As I read the instructions for splitting the batter into four new starters, I couldn't help but be reminded of my mother's brief foray into Amway. I was only about ten when she joined Amway, but to this day, I still feel the effects of this decision (and not just in the sub-par laundry soap from the 80s that still stocks the shelves in our laundry room). The business propagated, it seemed to me, mostly by tricking your friends into joining and making them buy products. Amway was a transformative experience for my mother. Prior to Amway, in home movies, my mother was a soft-spoken woman. I can't say the same today.

It was not until college, in Sociology 101, that someone drew a scholarly link between the socialization tactics of cults and Amway. Thrown into the mix in that chapter were Mormons, the Moonies, and if anyone had known about the Amish Friendship bread, perhaps the Amish would have gotten a few paragraphs.

For anyone who seriously cooks in a kitchen, waste is an enemy. All food has the potential of providing nourishment, so it makes little sense to throw things away. The Amish should know better; I cannot possibly throw away perfectly good starter that has been lovingly fed milk, sugar, and flour! There are starving people in Africa who would kill for a spoonful of that Amish Friendship. Under these circumstances, there's only one thing left to do, what any good Amway distributor would do: get your friends involved.

As I thought about who among my unsuspecting friends could be burdened with a high-maintenance starter, I began to see the recipe for what it truly is.

An Amish Pyramid Scheme.

The whole recipe seemed a bit suspicious to me. One large box of instant pudding? How can instant pudding be Amish? Isn't that the baking equivalent of a proud zipper? Were it not for the divine crumb on this bread, I would throw in the towel and throw out the starter. But salvation is not an easy road!

With respect to the recipe itself, it is fairly straightforward. The splitting of batters into starters should leave you about 1-2 cups of batter to start your own batch of bread. The admonition against metal utensils was frustrating as Kitchenaid Mixmaster Thor could have made this bread quickly, with his eyes closed. Instead, I had to do it, first with a wooden spoon which didn't feel like it was getting enough beating done. Deciding that there was no sense in denying my heritage, I reached for a pair of wooden chopsticks, which coincidentally was what my mother first gave me to use to make cake batter when I was kid. (Thank you, Mom, I suppose, for this Lesson in Patience.)

Other things to note: The amount of cinnamon sugar topping called for by the recipe is a little too much to sprinkle evenly over two loaves, and the extra sugar ends up making the bread dusty. A nice even layer will brown and crisp the top of your bread. I ended up using two silicone pans, which seemed to work well enough.

By the time I got these two loaves into the oven, it was already past 9pm which is usually my cut-off for turning on any heat-producing devices in the kitchen, having learned the hard way that a sleepy Madwoman makes for some irregular and catastrophic baking. High maintenance and late hour aside, the Friendship Bread, true to its name, made the recipe worth it.

Here it is, lying in a lovely (and coincidentally Amish) basket I bought at a local crafts show last month:



And if that isn't Holy Redemption In a Basket, I don't know what is.

Local Sandwich Makes Good

The office ordered from Muffin Man today for our monthly meeting, and when the delivery man arrived, he said that my sandwich almost didn't make it because he almost ate it after making it.


As described on the menu:

PESTO CHICKEN: sliced chicken breast, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, fresh mozarella, and housemade pesto on baguette

I have to apologize for the truncated sandwich, but I got a few good bites in before I thought about taking a picture. The sandwich was slightly on the salty side but was otherwise vibrantly flavorful. The chicken breast was moist and juicy and the sauteed onions, pesto, and mozarella melded together well, making each bite interesting and exciting.

At first I was both intrigued and disturbed that the delivery man/cook almost ate my sandwich, but after the last bite, I understood why. Had the tables been turned, I'm not sure it would have escaped my belly.

Thank you, Muffin Man, for the rarely found Decent Sandwich In Anchorage.