TWD: Cornmeal Shortbread

I keep telling myself that I'm on the home stretch. Only two more classes, a presentation, and two papers before I'm free. And by free, I mean chained to a lab bench until the end of August. Sounds exciting, huh? But I can't wait for some of the inherent flexibility that happens during summer research - I can take an hour or two out of my day to go on a run, I can traipse off on three day weekend adventures a bit more easily than when I have classes keeping me on a short leash. There will be visits to new babies, visits to new friends, visits to family. I can't wait - everyone has had to come visit us, because it has just been too difficult to get away for a weekend when I don't really know very far in advance what I'll need to get done for the following week. Case in point: I figured that the end of March would be incredibly easy for family to visit - little did I know that I'd be frantically writing a rough draft of a research paper, researching for another project, and coordinating a group presentation for the following Monday. Let's just say that I didn't get to visit with J's parents too very much that time.

 
So I'm looking forward to the summer. However, I keep on getting derailed - I keep forgetting what I need to get done for each day. I have completely checked out, with very little interest in actually getting those final edits done on that research paper that's due in a week. The presentation I have today? Yeah. Haven't really practiced that one too much. I'm much more focused on trying to find a reasonable time to get my runs in now that it's godawfully hot and humid here already. Seriously, 90* in April is not okay.

 
In the meantime though, I keep bringing baked goods into my classes, I keep sending baked goods to J's office. And while I'm not always sure that he isn't hoarding them in his desk drawer, I got wonderful feedback on these cornmeal shortbread cookies. Well, who wouldn't love them? Cornmeal in cookies gets me every time - it adds just a little bit of sweetness, just enough texture to make me like shortbread. And given my general dislike for shortbread, that's key. (What is also key is not to use polenta or coarse-ground cornmeal. Unless you like breaking your teeth on these cookies...) It probably didn't hurt that I made a half batch but more than doubled the lemon zest. Lemon zest is good stuff, people. Oh! And while I love Dorie's use of plastic bags to roll cookies out in so that you can chill them then cut the bag open in order to get uniform cookies, I'm a plastic bag hoarder. You see, I wash and reuse my plastic bags, so the idea of sacrificing one? No thanks. I rolled these up into a log and did the refrigerate-slice-bake thing, and it worked perfectly.

Last Week: A Tourtely Apple Tart
Next Week: Basic Marbled Loaf Cake (one of the first requests from J - this time though, I refuse to do the chocolate-mint combo. *shudder*)

TWD: A Tourtely Apple Tart

Brown butter. Vanilla. Sauteed apples. Almonds. Toasty sandy tart crust, just | this close | to being too brown. Raisins, just for the heck of it. And to show you what I have to work with when J taste tests for me - his assessment of this was "good." By good, he means he didn't forget it (always happens...), commented especially on his love for the tart crust, and it was gone in two days. Boy's got a talent for understatement. Then again, it's good that he taste tested given my absolute 100% commitment to the standard apple pie with pie crust made with shortening. Something tells me that my stubborn affection for good ol' apple pie will cause me to think any other version just isn't as good.

 
Similarly, it turns out that I have a go-to chocolate cake. It's not Martha Stewart's one bowl affair (which seems to be nearly everyone's go-to chocolate cake), oh no. That would be too easy. No, it's this chocolate stout cake, made in a bundt pan, and requiring a plethora of bowls, measuring cups, whisks and spatulas. But it's good. I mean, really really really good. So good we buy Guinness just so that we can make it (although the time we made it with double chocolate stout? swoon). This was the cake that J chose as his mini cake for the wedding reception, and I've made it about a dozen times in the past couple years. That in itself is impressive, given my general aversion to baking cakes and also my aversion to making something multiple times unless it's a family recipe. Which is all to say that I have this cake baking away while I'm writing this post, and it's distracting. Very distracting.

 
Unfortunately, what's also distracting (besides this schizophrenic post, oops) is the end of the semester. Luckily, my ducks are pretty well lined up. I have funding for next year, research plans for this summer, and am down to the last few little details in most of my classes. But by last few details, I mean that I'm running about like a headless chicken. Well, like a slightly more crazed than normal headless chicken, because I think that running about like that comes naturally to me. In the meantime, I actually got the chance to meet up with some of J's coworkers last Friday night, trying out the more tourist-y barbecue joint in the area (although Allen & Sons still has my heart, because they didn't try to take all my money in the process. or make me wait an hour for slightly dry chopped pork. darn you Pit...). Anyway. I was immediately told that they were glad to finally meet the source of the baked goods, and we had a wonderful time chatting about how I really need to give up this whole more education thing and just bake all the time. Ah, if only. It was nice to get out of the lab, away from the desk, and back to interacting with people for whom work is not a lifelong passion. Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect both for people who make their living with their passion and those who just get their work done, go home, and live their lives. It's just that after being surrounded by the former for the past year, it was pretty nice to remind myself that other types of work ethics do exist. And hey, when they come with shots of moonshine (not even on the menu...), I'm totally there.

Last Week: Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp (which not only disappeared in 30 min at J's work, he immediately emailed me to ask for the recipe for a number of his coworkers. win, yes?)
Next Week: Cornmeal Shortbread Cookies (double the lemon zest. seriously. or sub in orange or lime. double those too. heck, double the recipe.)

TWD: Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp

I have short hair. I've had short hair for the past, oh, 7 years. And during the preceding however many, my hair tends to grow long, long, long, then get hacked off rather abruptly. The worst was the last time I had long hair, as in I could sit on it because it was so long. Seriously, I had to pull it out of the waistband of my jeans when I pulled pants on. After a run, my neck would ache from that huge mass of hair swinging back and forth behind me. So I chopped it off. And (as you could see from the wedding pictures), it's stayed pretty short ever since. I'm a no-fuss sort of person. If I can get away without blow drying, straightening, whatever-ing my hair - I will.

So what I'm leading up to is this. I'm growing my hair out right now. Have been ever since the wedding. You see, J hasn't ever seen me with long hair, and he's curious. Given that he has put up with me dragging him into nice clothing stores so that he's not wearing khakis from 10 years ago, I figured that I would go along with it. Little did I know (or remember, really), hair is really effing annoying when growing out. It flips in funny weird ways, you have the dreaded mullet occasionally during the process, and it gets in your eyes all the time. Even worse, I have little patience for maintaining any sort of socially acceptable hairdo, so I have yet to go get it trimmed and shaped. I currently have wings at my temples and it violently flips out at the base of my neck. Oh, yeah. My neck. Which hasn't felt hair on it in, that's right, seven years.

 
Which meant that this past Saturday during my run, all that went through my head was this: Oh god. Hair. On my neck. Sticking on my neck. I can feel it. Make it stop. Ugh. God. Hair. On. Neck. Stopstopstop. You get the idea. For 40 minutes, all I could focus on was the goddamned hair on my neck. And before anyone asks, no, those little bands do not keep my hair back (they slide right off) and no, my hair is not long enough to be restrained in any other way. So I'm stuck with the internal hair-on-neck monologue. Have I mentioned lately that North Carolina in April involves 95% humidity and highs already in the 80s? I've been noting that fact out loud whenever J is about, just to show how much I'm sacrificing for his wish to see me with long hair. Which might be why he willingly washed all of the dishes for this crisp, especially since the number of dishes required (or that I ended up using...) was approximately eleventy bajillion.

But let's be clear. Eleventy bajillion dishes aside, hair-on-neck distress aside, this crisp is abso-effing-lutely amazing. And totally worth it. It's one of my friend's favorite recipes out of this book, and I was beyond thrilled that I was able to find rhubarb for it. (Oh yes, because have I mentioned? In addition to it being too hot for apples in NC, it's also too hot for rhubarb. *grumblegrumble*) Luckily, the awesome co-op nearby had a stack of it, from which I giddily grabbed a handful. Also entertaining was that rhubarb is evidently a conversation starter - one guy was contemplating getting some when I grabbed mine and we started to talk about rhubarb and the problems of living in NC after growing up "up north." Then a woman chatted me up about how rhubarb didn't grown around here while I was checking out. And then the woman checking out my groceries asked what it was and what to use it in. Obviously, strawberry rhubarb double crisp. Obviously.

 Also, not very photogenic. Makes up for that in pure deliciousness.

Last Week: Technically, a coffee ice cream tart, actually Pecan Powder Puffs (tart coming soon!)
Next Week: A Tourtely Apple Tart (which was a hit with J, despite our love of traditional apple pies)

NFR: My Wedding

You know what's crazy? Dizzying highs and lows. After the past month, the last couple of days have been pretty kick ass. Let's count the ways:

1. Rough draft of a research paper, turned in to be (kindly, constructively) mauled with red ink.
2. Major deliverable for another project completed, with the associated presentation all ready to go for today.
3. Funding for my next year of graduate school settled.
4. Said funding involving an amazing program that has seriously made this past year in graduate school beyond awesome.
5. My wedding. I know it was a few months ago, but bear with me - I'm over at A Practical Wedding, sharing photos (taken by Helene, remember?) and thoughts.

All good things, people. Please tell me you've been having good things happen too?

And for those who don't understand what goes on in my brain, a) feel thankful, and b) NFR = not food related

TWD: Pecan Powder Puffs

Oh hai. Yeah. I must admit, I'm not incredibly sure how to go about this, my first post in a number of weeks. Especially since when I wrote my last post, I was positive it wasn't going to be a "goodbye for now" so much as a "see ya later, or more likely never again." I even went three weeks without baking, which has to be a record (except for last summer when I was stranded, oven-less). Those weeks leading up to my last post as well as the intervening weeks have been rough. I can't lie about that. It takes a lot to get me out of the kitchen, off the internet, away from the other flour-obsessed crazies (so titled with all the affection in my heart). But it happened.

 
You see, for most of this year I've been more than a little bit depressed. And in general, my solution has been a combination of two things: running and baking. But that solution just wasn't working. I was having crying jags in the middle of stores, hours of unprovoked sobbing at home while J sat helplessly, days when I nearly didn't make it out of bed. I almost left my program here at UNC, which, since I had dropped everything to start it, was not a very good sign. Graduate school has been a wee bit isolating, thanks to the dearth of other married folk (or people who aren't scared of married folk) or people who had worked prior to going to graduate school. There are social complications because of those two facts, which aren't important to get into specifically.

 
Not only that, there are times when I wonder if this degree will be all it's cracked up to be. The question of type of job versus job field has come up multiple times. You see, I love environmental chemistry. I geek out on organic chemistry, particulate matter, and climate change science. But I also adore fast-paced, highly structured, people-oriented jobs. It's what I loved about my job in Wisconsin - I got to interact with so many people, there were new challenges every day, and new goals or projects around every corner. How do I know that I'll get that when I join the environmental job market? And - the big one - which matters more, the field or the job type? Needless to say, these are big, big questions. Around the time that I bid a short goodbye, I was nearly convinced that I was going to leave my program. The program I had moved halfway across the country for, the one for which J had picked up and moved without a single job prospect.

 
So this blog? The baking? The photos and the writing? Those weren't a high priority. Priorities were heart-to-hearts with my mom, frank discussions with my advisor, and cry fests with J. And thank goodness for all three of them. My mom, who listened even when she couldn't understand what I was saying through the tears, my advisor, who patiently talked me through my waffling back and forth on accelerating the program into 1.5 years instead of 2, and J, who was there, forcing me to, if nothing else, go on walks for the fresh air. Because there were definitely times when just getting out of bed was difficult enough.

 
What does that have to do with cookies? Oh, very little, except that I forgot to buy ice cream for the coffee ice cream tart. I did bake everything that had been chosen up until these cookies, but taking pictures just wasn't going to happen. The coffee ice cream tart will happen eventually though, given my love of coffee in all its forms. But the cookies were a welcome back to my kitchen. And a promise that things get better.

A bit ago: Chocolate Pots de Creme
Next week: Strawberry-Rhubarb Double Crisp (hoping to find rhubarb, but it feels a bit early still)