Chronicling Days Off II

The sun has been generous to show its face in Bellingham the last few days.



Though it will be nice to finally have curtains on all my windows soon, I might just get in the habit of pulling one back right before slipping into bed so that I don't lose these opportunities for slow soft awakenings by morning light. An old fence, dirty white, and barren branches of plum trees fill my view. I know whether it is windy by the sway of the tall pines beyond. A damp grey blanket, puffy white clouds, or clear blue offer hints as to what I will encounter as I habitually move through quiet living room, step across cold kitchen floor, and fill my water glass at the sink beneath a window that faces the fresh day's sun.

This little house embraces outside light in such a rich sweet way that ten months into dwelling here, I still revel in it...



[Days off are for] admiring new curtains hanging over closet space.



[Days off are for] sipping another brand of ginger ale/beer and hoping I'll taste a bit of New Zealand.


(I have yet to find one that matches up, though Delancey's house recipe is the closest.)

[Days off are for] making wheaten tea biscuits to replenish my depleted supply of Digestives.

Just melt and flake and crumble

Last weekend I got one of the best gifts ever. It was especially, well, special because the Foodzie mail I was expecting was a work assignment. Though that was still an exciting prospect, finding a note of thanks and encouragement from my team over at Foodzie and an assortment of goodies was a wonderful surprise. They had sent me a finals week care package full of treats from La Cocina!



Just an recap if you missed my post a while back...I've been interning remotely for Foodzie, a San Francisco based company passionate about seeing artisan food producers and growers succeed while also helping food lovers find the unique items they're looking for. I love what they do and who they are, and apparently others have noticed too because they were recently recognized by BusinessWeek among the Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2009!

So, when I opened the box and zig-zaggy strips of stuffing began to fall out and reveal cookies, preserves, and glorious nuts, I stopped to grab my camera. I knew this would be a blog-worthy subject.

I spent the next half hour (at least) opening each package and placing its contents on my coffee table facing the afternoon sunlight. Sometimes nibbling was required to get a more interesting photo, so I got to try a little taste of each treat as I went.

I hope to share with you many of these delicious goodies available from La Cocina, but tonight I only have time for one. It is the one that ended up disappearing completely by the end of the photo shoot. Though everything was memorable in its own right, I kept coming back to this buttery shortbread cookie.



So much more than a cookie, Clairesquares' take on Millionaire's shortbread, or a Wellington -- its name in her native Ireland -- is addictive to say the least. Each layer could stand on its own (if you're into dipping your finger into straight caramel or licking a surface of pure Belgian chocolate). The shortbread might be more polite to consume alone. Just snag some fresh off the cooling rack in Claire's kitchen. I wish I could myself; it really did just melt and flake and crumble all at once in my mouth like truly decent shortbread should.

This cookie is available in each of La Cocina's sampler boxes, which are perfect for treating yourself to a variety of artisan producers' creations or expressing a heart-felt thank you to a friend. From smallest to largest, you can choose the Teaspoon Box, Half-Pint Box, Quart-Sized Box, or Stock-Pot Box.

No Ordinary Cookie

I have something a.ma.zing to share with you today. It comes in the form of an innocent little cookie and looks quite unremarkable sitting on its cooling rack fresh out of the oven.

Come to think of it, the poor dear is still not much to look at twenty-four hours later. But let's not be superficial.



Molly has raved about this cookie recipe, and when Molly raves about something, my head starts nodding in agreement before I even take a bite of my own replication. She's a sly one in that way.

So, these little buckwheat cookies with the crunch of raw chocolate have been filed away in the back of my head for a while, and they finally came into being last night. The nibble we all agreed to take last night was pleasant enough, but today their flavor is deeper and yet gentler. The buckwheat isn't so abrasive, and the cocoa nibs have released their aroma throughout the crumb.

You might get some strange looks when you nonchalantly ask someone, "Do you want a buckwheat and cocoa nib cookie?" But if they've got any sense in them (okay, and an ounce of adventure), you'll have many pleased palates before you.

Now here's the recipe I just know you're itching for...

Buckwheat Butter Cookies with Cocoa Nibs

Tuesdays with Dorie & Homemade Biscotti: Two New Favorite Things

I often find myself in conflict with the dark, rich brew known as coffee. I straddle a line that was clearly drawn out in my youth. My mother is on one side shaking her head in sadness that this is even a point of argument as she holds out a hot cup of fragrant, floral herbal tea. My dad is on the other, so casually sipping his thick, strong coffee that I am intrigued by its mystery as well as its intense aroma.

Now, you might be wondering why at the age of twenty-two, after being out of my parents' house for four years, I am still trying to keep a foot on both sides of this abyss. Why haven't I made up my mind for myself? I wish the answer was a simple one, but it's not. Ultimately, I am grateful for those who have led the way in living with a love for both tea and coffee. This is where I prefer to place myself. If the coffee is poor (because living with my dad and being in the Pacific Northwest were excellent trainers for knowing when a cup of joe isn't worth swallowing), I'll usually take tea. If biscuits are present, black tea with a spot of cream is preferred. If it's the morning after a depleted night's sleep, thanks to a little bit of procrastination and an additional bit of overlapping class due dates, then it's coffee I want for the extra jolt.

Why all this talk of coffee, when I'm supposed to be talking about two new favorite things: Tuesdays with Dorie and homemade biscotti? Well, I have been loading up on coffee a lot recently, trying to finish assignments, and that's why, when I saw that the recipe for today was Dorie's Lenox Almond Biscotti, I was very pleased. In my opinion, the only thing better than a good cup of coffee is a good cup of coffee with a biscotti.


I had never made my own biscotti before, though not out of fear of difficulty. It has remained on that perpetual list of things to do that I keep stored in my mind but don't stress myself out for not getting to (because I have enough lists elsewhere). If it's really important, it will make its way to the surface and work itself out, or demand my attention enough to get me moving. While biscotti wasn't a particularly dynamic or vocal item on my list, I'm glad our paths finally crossed.

I trust Dorie's recommendation to put cornmeal in the biscotti dough and want to try this on my next batch. For now, I substituted the cornmeal with whole wheat flour because I also two teaspoons of dried lavender to the dough and didn't want too many elements fighting for attention. Additionally, I knew my biscotti would be nubby enough because I chopped up slivered almonds instead of using sliced, wanting the crunchy bites of the nut to serve as a reminder of the biscotti's star ingredient: almond. This also kept me from hesitating when I saw Dorie's instructions for a generous amount of almond extract. I have yet to be displeased by a strong almond flavor.


The lavender was a lovely component, and I am very glad I added it. In the last stage, with the nuts, I scooped in two teaspoons of the dried, edible flower buds and tasted a bit of the dough after shaping two logs on the cookie sheet. The lavender flavor was so strong that I became worried I had overdone it. But, from then until the end of the baking process, somehow the flower's flavor and scent mellowed out and became a pleasing undertone, only reappearing distinctively in the very occasional bite.

Thank you so much to Gretchen of Canela & Comino for choosing this delicious recipe. You helped me check something off my to-do list, and that is always a wonderful thing to experience, even if it's very little.

Dorie's original recipe for these biscotti is located here, and it's basic enough to be wide open to variation. I look forward to exploring these variants in the future.

For blog scanners versus readers (no biases intended; I just know you're out there), here is a set-apart link to the recipe:
Lenox Almond Biscotti


[Sorry if this post is disjointed or lacking in personality. I find my eyelids heavy tonight as my body tells me to give it some rest after spending all of last night in my photography class's photo lab.]

Seeking Variety

I never set out to make a name for myself in the cookie baking department. In fact, looking at my recipe index, it would appear I have a ways to go until that title is truly earned. But ask my coworkers what they expect to find in the break room on Wednesdays, and they'll quickly answer back with "Lael's cookies."

A particular recipe I made a while ago launched me into being a weekly cookie baker in my office and I have stuck faithfully to that recipe since. The wonderful thing about it is that within the same dough you can replace or add any number of things and get something new and different, yet still with a melt-in-your-mouth sensation.

However, I am not always the best example of a creature of habit because while I like consistency in some senses, I can get incredibly bored with it. For one, I'm not the kind of person who eats the same thing for breakfast every single morning. And, while I love to give myself an extra half or full hour to exercise in the morning, the activity may range between walking, running, or any number of yoga sessions.

All that to say, I can't help mixing things up on Cookie Day sometimes. I try to stick to a similar type of cookie, at least, and last week's variation was subtle but still special in its own way. Instead of using powdered sugar, I used unrefined cane sugar and cut the amount of all purpose flour in half, replacing the rest with whole wheat. The eggs were left in the fridge, and a coarsely chopped chocolate bar was mixed in.

I cannot claim this adaptation as an invention of my own brilliance. In fact, it's an entirely different recipe. One from the mind of Dorie Greenspan, and the other from the equally admirable Alice Medrich. Both produce a cookie with similar proportions of ingredients and delicate flavor that spaciously fits in the palm of your hand.

I can't remember where I first saw this recipe, but when Googling it, I found that The Wednesday Chef had made it, and it's quite possible I first read about it there.

Whole Wheat Sables*

*Alice's recipe calls for cocoa nibs or chopped hazelnuts, both of which sound lovely, but I had an Endangered Species dark chocolate bar with espresso beans on hand, so I used part of that.

Cookie Thursdays

Hello! Thank you so much for your patience with me in this last month+ as I disappeared from the food blog world. I especially appreciated the occasional comments I still received!

I will admit that this little "fast" of mine ended more than a week ago, but I've gotten out of the blogging rhythm, so it's taken me this long to finally sit down and write. I have also found the idea of picking up again a bit daunting because so much has happened since my last post in February. So, I'm going to go ahead and fill you in on a new ritual of mine and point you toward the recipe it revolves around. Then you can keep reading if you're interested in a broader life update...



Envision cookies, dozens of them, pushed into crooked rows on a counter top after the one cooling rack in our kitchen has overflowed.





Out of the freezer comes a cold, sweet log of dough; a long blade precisely slices, slices, slices until there's no more to slice; a baking sheet comes out of the oven; another goes in; the timer is set for nine minutes; I have seven minutes to breathe and get out of the hot kitchen until the ritual starts over again.



When I offered to provide cookies for a work-related meeting I had no idea they would be a success, that this pattern--measuring, sifting, whirring, rolling, freezing, slicing--would become second nature to me in a matter of weeks. Yet, here I am on another Thursday evening, having risen at eight o'clock to turn the oven on before jumping in the shower and thinking of the two containers of cookie crumbs sitting in the break room at my office.

It really has been a joy to provide cookies to such an enthusiastic group of co-workers (actually, they're all pretty much my bosses). After that first batch of cookies was made and the leftovers were devoured in the break room a note appeared in their place proposing a "Lael, please, oh please, refill the cookie box" fund.



Ever since the end of February I have been taking this fund and delivering batches of cookies to the office on Thursday mornings, for which I receive elated faces and satisfied moans. Honest. These cookies are serious business. And I wish I could take full credit for them, but all I did was snag the recipe from Smitten Kitchen who adapted it from Dorie Greenspan.

I have to admit that Deb of Smitten Kitchen hit on something pretty amazing. The crumb of these cookies is delicate and modestly sweet. The whole thing melts in your mouth and the base is so versatile that you can customize each batch to almost any palette.

The office's biggest fan of these cookies is Steven, and one day my friend and I were cruel enough to convince him that they had all been eaten before he had a chance to get any. You should have seen the look on his face. But when he found out we had lied this was his response:

"I was mad, but after one cookie, I was filled with nothing but grace."

And this is my absolute favorite quote of his:

"If I were single, these cookies might make me give up my search for a meaningful relationship."

I really don't know what else to say. You're just going to have to try them!

Not wanting to take any credit away from Smitten Kitchen for these little wonders, follow this link to the recipe for her
Slice and Bake Cookies.

Here are just a few of the variations I've made:

• zest of two limes and 1/2 cup coconut replacing equal parts flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (replacing flour) and 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
• 1 t. fennel with pine nuts on top (inspired by this cookie recipe)
• 1/4 cup chopped candied ginger and 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped pistachio and sesame seed combo (lightly toasted) and rose water (replacing vanilla)
  

Okay, so I think that's where I'm going to wrap things up tonight. I promise I'll be back to fill in some gaps (e.i. post artwork, etc.) later. The sun has gone down, friends are coming over soon, and I need to scrub some spots on our kitchen floor. Ciao!