Self-Rising

It’s been established that I’m a nostalgic idiot.  Even when I have absolutely no reason to feel nostalgia, I’ll find a way!  I mention this only because I have no reason to feel emotional about baking Polvorones; yet, somehow, I do. 

My family attributes this recipe to Elvira, my grandmother’s aunt.  However, I’m sure someone many generations removed passed it on to Elvira.  Prior to maybe four years ago, I had never heard of a Polvorón.  It’s not like my family baked them yearly or anything.  But a few years ago that uncle that I keep mentioning asked my aunt for Elvira’s recipe for Polvorones and everyone over the age of forty flipped out.  They got so excited. 

It wasn’t until last year that either of us got our hands on Elvira’s recipe.  And we both showed up to Christmas dinner with our own versions: mines standard, his chocolate.  My grandmother’s cousin, Villita, and my great uncle’s wife, Bebita, ate maybe ten of them each.  I felt like I had done something good for my family; brought out a piece of the past that everyone had forgotten.

A Polvorón is a type of Spanish shortbread that is heavy, soft, and very very crumbly.  The name – polvo- comes from the dusty consistency.  There are countless ways to make them, and most Spanish speaking countries have their own versions, but as a whole they hail from Andalucía and are pretty simple.  The recipe I have is very vague and not very helpful, but it gave me a good platform to start from.  Bear with me as I make an already vague recipe even more so.

 Ingredients:

½ lb white lard (manteca blanca) – 1 used about 2 cups…because weighing lard isn’t my thing

1 egg

½ pound sugar – the recipe doesn’t specify what kind of sugar, so I used white granulated sugar and just used a lot… I didn’t bother measuring it.

“some” ground cinnamon

“some” ground cloves

“some” confectioner’s sugar (not part of Elvira’s recipe)

Elvira’s recipe is written in some archaic Spanish that I just don’t understand.  I mean, she says to beat the lard with a fork until it creates a soft peak.  Beat with a fork?  No, I don’t understand those words.  I used an electric beater.  

Then her recipe says to add “some” ground cinnamon and “some” ground cloves, blending well.  Then add the egg and the sugar.  Blend well.  Now, I usually don’t have a problem with recipes that say “some”, but when you’ve got the memories of all your family members to live up to, the pressure is on and I want to know more! Especially considering I don’t have my own experience eating Polvorones, so don’t have a comparison.

Anyway, once the mixture is well blended, I started adding flour little by little as I mixed with a fork.  Once a thick paste was created, I kneaded the mixture with my fingers, slowly adding flour, until the dough hardened.  Then I rolled out the dough and cut out little cookies with a Cuban coffee cup. 

I couldn’t remember how long I left them in the oven last year, so I baked my first batch at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, but ended up overcooking them.  My second batch baked well for 18 minutes.  While still hot, I dusted the cookies with some confectioners sugar and then packed them away. 

Every culture has it’s own version of eggnog; the egg-based frothy dessert drink that’s commonplace during the holidays.  Okay, maybe not EVERY culture, but for my sake, let’s just go with it.  Americans and Brits call it eggnog, the French have their crème de vie.  Puerto Ricans call it coquito.  The Dutch call it advocaat and even the fair people of Trinidad and Tobago have ponche crema.  For us Cubans – and the Spaniards we hail from – it’s crema de vie or “cream of life”. 

There is no one set way of preparing this drink, but we all have our favorites.  I know people who buy Farm Store (or “la vaquita”) eggnog, cook up simple syrup with anis estrellado (star anis), and mix it with white rum.  I’m not saying that version isn’t yummy – because it is – but it just doesn’t feel right.  It doesn’t feel like generations and generations of shared space, shared recipes, and shared memories.  I prefer my family’s recipe.  It’s simple, it’s delicious, and best of all, it can get you hammered. 

I started making the crema de vie maybe five or six years ago.  It’s my grandmother’s recipe, and every year I think of her as I make gallons and gallons of it to gift to my friend’s parents, coworkers, and the maintenance staff at school.  My grandmother’s first cousin, Villita, sat me down in mid June one year and talked me through it. Come Thanksgiving, she and I would make our own batches and compare.  Of course, her experienced hand always trumped mine…but my slightly imprecise hand made for a truly alcoholic experience.  Every year, I beamed with pride as Villita tried my batch, complimented it, and then began reminiscing on her childhood with my grandmother.  That simple joy made the hours in the kitchen worth it. 

This year, my batch will be the only one at our Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) dinner.  Villita passed this year, and while I initially thought that mixing up the drink might make me sad, I was pleasantly surprised that it comforted more than anything.  This is just something else of hers I have to hold onto. Another piece of her passed down to me that I can cherish.  While she was alive, I thought my crema de vie was a tribute to my grandmother.  I didn’t notice it was also a sweet tribute to my Villa. 

  Ingredients

2 cups white granulated sugar

1 cup whole milk

1 or 2 stick(s) cinnamon

1 can evaporated milk

1 can condensed milk

8 eggs, separated

vanilla, to taste

1 cup white rum (Bacardi, if you want to keep with the Cuban theme)

The most difficult/time consuming part of this recipe is creating the perfect simple syrup.  I start by placing 2 cups sugar and 1 cup water in a small pot.  I stir it once or twice but not more.  On medium heat, I watch carefully as it heats and thickens.  Every so often, I dip in a spoon, scoop up a bit, and watch it drip back into the pot – making sure to not stir.  The syrup is ready when it is thick enough that a tiny “string” is left on your spoon, kind of like the string that hangs off a glue gun.  Not sure if that image translates well, but it’s the best I can do.  If you’re into precision, I’m told the candy thermometer should read 230.  Some people like to drop a few anis stars into the syrup as it cooks, but I don’t do that. 

Once the syrup is ready, I set it aside and let it cool to room temperature while I get the rest of the drink ready.  This part gets a bit tricky.  You can’t let it cool down too much, or you risk the candy hardening.  If it hardens, put it back on the heat for a minute or two.  But you also can’t have it too hot when you pour it into the drink, or else it will harden when it hits the cool liquid.

For this reason, I heat up 1 cup whole milk on the stove with a stick or two of cinnamon in it.  Before blending the syrup with the drink, I pour a little bit of the hot milk into the syrup and the rest into the drink to warm it up.  This way, you are pouring a warm mixture into a warm mixture.  I didn’t think this through once and ended up breaking an electric beater when the syrup candied as I poured it into the drink.  But more on that later.  I got ahead of myself. 

While the syrup is cooling, I separate 8 eggs.  I drop the egg whites into my largest pot, and begin beating them with an electric beater. This will take a few minutes on the highest speed.  Thank GOD for the electric beater.  I honestly don’t know how people made this drink, or other merengue-esque treats, before the electric beater.  I beat the egg whites to a peak then slowly beat in each egg yolk. 

Once well blended, I pour in 1 can of evaporated milk.  Then I beat.  I pour in 1 can of condensed milk.  Beat again.

Ok, so now to the whole warming the mixture thing I mentioned before.  At this point, I take out the cinnamon sticks from the whole milk and pour a little bit into the syrup and stir.  The rest of the whole milk gets poured into the mixture and I beat it until well blended.  At this point, when the mixture is slightly warmer than before, I pour in the syrup as I beat.   It’s also important to pray three Hail Marys and four Our Fathers that the syrup doesn’t harden on contact.  Take note.  If all goes well, my blender hasn’t gotten stuck on a hard piece of candy, and all is well.

I pour 1 cup of white rum into the mixture, a spoonful or two of vanilla, blend well, and cover.  I place the pot in the fridge over night. 

The next day, I strain the mixture to separate the film that created overnight and any pieces of hard candy that may exist.  Then I pour it into a bottle, close tightly, and share!  I you’re Cuban, I don’t need to be told that you drink this in tiny cafecito cups.  If you aren’t Cuban, you’ve been warned. Do not attempt to drink this out of a mug.  You will not be able to resist drinking lots of it, and fast, and you will not remember the night. 

Cooking time: a lot less time than you’d think!

Ingredients:

About 1 pound meat, in the following proportions:  1/3 ground beef - 1/3 ground ham - 1/3 ground pork

2 large white onions

Garlic Salt

1 bag seasoned stuffing

Dried plums/prunes (however much you want to put in)

Whole walnuts

A splash of dry cooking wine

1 medium sized bottle of large capers

My favorite holiday has to be Thanksgiving.  My family does it pot-luck style, with my aunt – our regular host since before I was born – making the turkey, Cuban style stuffing, and her special mashed potatoes (read: special = glorious).  One uncle brings a traditional American stuffing.  Another uncle does a rack of lamb or, this year, a leg of venison, and his famous corn soup.  Another aunt brings a corn soufflé, and a cousin brings a sweet potato casserole.  My mom makes the green bean casserole.  Every year we have the same meal with only slight variations.  A tradition.      

I have my own personal Thanksgiving morning tradition. When I was a kid, I used to wake up early and turn on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  With the Parade in the background, I’d help my mom make her casserole then spend the morning decorating the house for Christmas all by myself.  I loved the transition of it all; enjoying the parade and preparing the Thanksgiving dinner while welcoming the upcoming holiday.    In the early afternoon, my mom, aunt, and I would head to the host house and help decorate for dinner.  At night, I’d help out by making the mashed potatoes and preparing any last minute food.

Last year I broke from this tradition.  My aunt decided to spend the holiday with her husband’s family, and asked me to take over the turkey/stuffing/potato duties.  I was overwhelmed at first, because I had never made a turkey by myself and no one in my family other than my aunt had made one in years, so I felt like I was flying solo.  But while cooking the turkey made me weary, the thought of making my aunt’s Cuban-Style Thanksgiving Stuffing caused me heart palpitations (the good kind).  I was so excited to finally learn how to make it and was pleasantly surprised to find that it is pretty straightforward.  It tastes so rich that I never imagined it would be so simple.   

This year, my aunt is again visiting her husband’s family, and I’m so stoked to be able to host Thanksgiving for a second year in a row.  Our Thanksgiving is HUGE, with no fewer than 30 people each year.  To be asked to cook this special meal felt like an invitation to Fight Club.  Very exclusive, very prestige, what happens in Fight Club…you get the picture.  The cooking baton was passed to me, and I ran with it, with pride, and (in my opinion) with skill. 

Cook the three meats together in a pan and drain. Set aside.

Chop the two onions and sauté them until cooked. Throw in meat and blend well.  Season with garlic salt. 

Add the seasoned stuffing, dried plums/prunes.  Blend well.

Crunch the walnuts by placing a few handfuls into a zip-lock bag and beating it with something hard a little bit.  Don’t beat it too much or you will have more crumbs than pieces. 

Add the capers and some white wine (don’t swamp it). Blend well.

When I was maybe eleven or twelve my uncle called me up late one night, a day or two before Thanksgiving.  He told me he needed my help.  He needed to bake a cheesecake and I was the only person that could help him. Having nieces of my own, I now understand the subtle lies we tell to make someone feel important and needed when they are really pretty much useless.  To eleven-year-old me, though, it was butter and I was bread.  I remember begging – BEGGING – my mom to take me to my aunt’s house at 11 pm because I NEEDED to “help” my uncle.

This was the third time I ever baked anything from scratch. The first time was the flan I already wrote about. The second was a cake my mom stayed up late baking with me because I missed my grandmother shortly after she died, and third was this one experience with my uncle.

He wanted to bake a chocolate cheesecake.  I’m not a fan of chocolate but was an insane fan of cheesecake, so I was exited.  I specifically remember pretending I knew what I was doing as I crushed graham crackers with an unopened can of beans to make the crust. Truth is, I felt just as lost in the kitchen back then as I feel now. But I remember absolutely loving being there.   I remember feeling empowered and in control.  I remember thinking that on Thanksgiving, everyone was going to eat my cheesecake and tell me how life-changing it was.  Of course, Thanksgiving came and went and my cheesecake went unnoticed among the store-bought apple pies and whatnot.  I guess that was my first lesson in learning to love baking for yourself as opposed to your audience but, well, I’m a slow learner. 

Anyway, my uncle called me up and I showed up, and it was the first of many strange, awkwardly silent, extreme-bonding moments in my life (yes, I am aware of how grammatically incorrect this sentence is).  As a rule of thumb, my immediate family is a very outgoing, loud, friendly bunch that loves to eat and drink and laugh.  We are great. My uncle, though, has many different adjectives that can describe him.  And though I’m sure to many out-of-the-family-people he is social and welcoming, to my family, he is a bit of a hermit. We all love him beyond words, but not many people in my generation can boast a close relationship with him.  I am lucky, though. God gave me Godparents who actually care about the Godchildren they have. And this particular uncle of mine is also my Godfather… and while he might not be very social with my cousins, he knows how to bond with me.

When we were kids, my uncle used to pick us up in his green convertible. He used to take us to the movies and sometimes spoil us at Toys-R-Us.  I remember when I was fourteen he once took me to a Best-Buy and insisted on buying me a video camera.  I don’t quite understand why, but I was beyond thrilled. These are the kinds of experiences I imagine the rest of my cousins associate with my uncle. But I don’t.

When I think of my uncle, I think of COMMUNION.  I think of the kitchen.  My uncle is a different person in the kitchen. He is overconfident to the point of being cocky…he is smug, and good… and adventurous.  He has personality and flare.  Maybe I’ve imagined some of it, but when you share a kitchen with someone, you learned a lot about them.

Anyway, I’ve shared the kitchen with my uncle many times. Each time I grasp onto the experience as if I will never have another one quite like it. I imagine this is something unique to me, but I hope other people do this. Because I feel like I latch onto extremely important parts of life; like sharing the kitchen with your uncle when he didn’t really need your help but called you anyway and BEGGED you to come over because he absolutely NEEDED your eleven-year-old self to properly bake a cheesecake.  

Like I’ve alluded to, my uncle is pretty stellar.

Anyway. I’m twenty-six years old, and I still vividly remember that time when I was eleven and my uncle asked me to help him bake a cheesecake. The fact that I remember this is substantial.

Granted, I’m a bit of a nostalgic fool, but I think we should still honor my nostalgia with the proper amount of attention.

 …

I’m not someone who likes to share the kitchen…Especially with my nieces.  I keep forgetting that I was pretty mature my entire life.  I keep waiting for the moment when my nieces show me that they appreciate these little moments that I spend with them the same way that I appreciated the same little moments I spent with my uncle in the kitchen.  They haven’t yet.  But, I’ve got to give them credit when credit is due: while they aren’t the best sous chefs, they are FANTASTIC at eating and praising your cooking.

There WAS this one time, though, when I felt absolutely in sync with one of my nieces in the kitchen.  It was glorious.  As I mentioned in my first post, I’m a bit of a loner in the kitchen.  I like playing my music on my iPod and jamming out and blocking out the world…or playing episode after episode of whatever television program I am binge-watching at the time. Either way, I escape from real life and can completely engulf myself in baking.

One day my eldest brother’s youngest daughter (what a mouthful) slept over my house on a night that I was baking. She kept asking to help me, but I just don’t like help.  I use the kitchen to escape and create my own world; the last thing I need is someone interrupting that.

Of course, the dutiful aunt in me was instantly plagued with a painful bout of guilt. I remembered my uncle and the change that spending time with him in the kitchen sparked within me and I knew that I couldn’t deny my niece that experience.

I figured, she might not remember baking with me….but I KNEW I would remember. And I knew it would mean a lot to me to share that with her.  And if she so happened to place some meaning to the time she spent with me in the kitchen, then I would feel like the cycle was complete, and I had played a formative part in her life…in the same way my uncle played a formative part in my life.

So I showed up to her house one night with all the necessary ingredients to bake a deep-dish apple pie. 

I’m happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised.

My niece, who can barely pay proper attention to her favorite television program, stayed the entire night by my side as I kneaded dough and cored apples.  I half expected her to get tired twenty minutes into the process, but my niece stayed by my side for HOURS as I mixed the dough and beat it, and spread it, and chilled it, and cut apples, and cooked them, and spread them onto the mold, and fought with the dough that covers the pie. 

To that point, I had never seen my niece pay attention to anything for more than twenty minutes.  I don’t know if she remembers that evening we spent in her kitchen. I don’t know if fifteen years from now she will feel compelled to write a blog about it.

What I do know is that I felt just as proud kneading dough with my niece as I felt watching her older sister break it down on stage in front of hundreds of people.

I honestly do hope that experience stayed with her. But as these things go, experiences are in the eye of the beholder.  I can’t force my nieces to find importance in these tiny moment in life.  I can only hope that when time passes, and they have matured, they realize just how important these moments in the kitchen were to ME.

Recipe Source: Ultimate Kitchen Companion, Bay Books (2008)

Cooking time: A LONG TIME.  (Seriously, though, a long long time).

Ingredients:

1 cup self-raising flour

1 cup plain flour

4 oz chilled unsalted butter, chopped up

2 tablespoons caster sugar

2 eggs

1-2 tablespoons milk

8 large apples, peeled, cored, thickly sliced

2 thick strips lemon rind

1 cinnamon stick

½ granulated sugar

Grease a deep, 8 inch round springform tin. Line the base with baking paper, grease the paper, dust lightly with flour and shake off the excess. 

Sift the flours, then rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Mix in the sugar, add 1 egg and almost all the milk and mix with a flat-bladed knife until the mixture comes together, adding more liquid if necessary.  Turn onto a lightly floured surface and gather together. Roll two-thirds of the pastry between two sheets of baking paper to cover the base and side of the tin.  Ease into the tin.  Roll out the remaining pastry large enough to fit the top of the tin.  Chill for 20 minutes.

Put the apples, rind, cloves, cinnamon, sugar and 2 cups water in a large pan.  Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, or until tender.  Remove from the heat, drain, and cool. Discard the rind, cloves, and cinnamon. 

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Spoon the filling into the pie shell.  Cover with the pie top, lightly beat the remaining egg and brush over the pastry edges to seal.  Prick the top with a fork. Trim the edges and crimp to seal. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 50 minutes.  Leave to cool for 10 minutes.  

Cooking time: uncertain because, well, I was taking pictures and notes and other cool things for you folks.

Ingredients:

½ cup sugar

lemon juice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 whole egg, lightly beaten

4 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk

cinnamon

I thought I’d make my first official blog-recipe something that matters to me.

When I was a little girl, I regularly spent the night at my grandmother’s house (or at least it felt like it was regular to a little girl). I remember lying in bed next to my “Aba” early in the morning and kicking our feet into the air, moving our legs as if we were riding imaginary, inverted bicycles, and giggling like we were sharing a secret.  I remember sitting in the back porch with her, peeling the skin off of oranges and letting the sticky juices drip down my chin as I ate. I remember coming home from school to fresh homemade Jell-O. I remember how she always stockpiled raisins in one of the bottom kitchen cabinets, and how she always let me pour unhealthy amounts of sugar in my oatmeal (damn woman!).

One of my fondest memories was the one time that we baked flan together.  The memory is vague, and I have a feeling I was very very young, but I distinctly remember her humming to herself as she moved the “baño maria” from the gas range to the oven.  I remember her flipping the chilled flan onto a shallow dish and wiping up the excess caramel from the bake ware with our fingers, grinning at each other.  I wish I could remember more, but what I do have of the memory is potent.  So potent, in fact, that I’ve been too scared of baking my own flan out of fear of altering the memory or destroying the sanctity of that experience.  Every single time I eat flan I think of my Aba, and it wasn’t until more than 15 years later that I dared create a new memory. 

Thing is, I don’t dare try the same recipe.  I just can’t do that.  So my recipe is a bit altered.  I imagine my grandmother used the Cocina Criolla recipe, which calls for evaporated milk or regular milk in addition to the leche condensada (“condensed milk”).  Cocina Criolla is a bit of a Cuban Kitchen’s Bible. I have this fantasy of someone gifting it to me the day I get married…ok, off topic. 

Anyway, just FYI, I know baking is a “science,” but I don’t have the patience for that. 

The most difficult part of baking a flan is making the caramel.  Now, I know THIS should be a precise science, and I should probably use a candy thermometer, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.  I poured kinda-but-not-really two cups of white sugar in a small saucepan with more than a few drops of water, and a few squirts of lemon juice.  I heated it on medium-to-lowish (does that exist) heat until it turned a pretty medium brown color.  I didn’t stir it, because I’m told you shouldn’t, but I did move the saucepan around.  I have a lot of experience with caramel and simple syrup, and the line between simple syrup and caramel.  Every year, during baking season (that’s my special term for the holidays), I make gallons and gallons of crème-de-vie (yes, yes, slow your roll, I’ll write a post about that).  The biggest challenge is always keeping the simple syrup a liquid, and not caramelizing the sugar.  Again, I try to use a candy thermometer when I make the syrup, but, again, it’s just…. Ugh. Anyway, with the caramel for the flan, you want it to get really pretty and golden-brownish.

Once it’s “pretty and golden-brownish” (my imprecision is quite beautiful), I poured it into the bake ware.  So, fun story: I found a vintage Pyrex range-top double boiler in the cabinet.  That’s bake-speak for fancy “baño maria” from the late 70s/early 80s a.k.a. a bain-marie.  A “baño maria” is basically bake ware that allows you to cook food inside of a container that is “bathing” inside of another one.  A slow cooker, of sorts, that regulates temperature.  Again, science.  Anyway, I mention the 70’s cookware because even though I’ve never seen my mom use it, I felt connected to her, and I imagined her receiving it for her wedding, or inheriting it from her mother. And the connectedness of it all made me feel all warm and fuzzy in the warm and fuzzy places.  Note: use of a time machine to purchase one of these gadgets is not necessary.  Just use a smaller glass pan inside of a larger one (made out of any material). What matters is that the smaller pan is submerged almost completely in the water held in the larger pan.

I took the smaller of the two “baño maria” “tubs” (to continue with the bathing terminology), and poured the liquid caramel inside.  Without waiting for the caramel to harden, I swirled the liquid around the bottom and sides of the tub, creating a thick coat. I set the small tub aside and let the caramel completely cool.  It gets hard and glassy, and that’s when its ready. To be completely honest, I placed it in the freezer because it was taking too long to cool down.

While I was waiting for the caramel to harden, I poured the condensed milk in the blender, and used the can to measure out one can water, which I poured in the blender as well. I mixed till well blended, then added what was supposed to be 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract but ended up being more like 3. In a bowl, I beat one whole egg with the yolk of four others.  This part is fun, because I like separating eggs with my hands. Once lightly beaten, I added the eggs to the blender and mixed well. 

I poured this mixture into the small tub that had the hardened caramel.  I then sprinkled some cinnamon onto the mixture but didn’t blend.

I covered the small tub tightly with aluminum foil, set it aside, and headed over to the stovetop.

I filled the big tub of the “baño maria” about halfway with water, and placed it on the stove to ALMOST boil. Once I felt pretty comfortable with the almost-boiling state of the water, I CAREFULLY placed the small tub inside the larger tub, and slowly moved it to the oven.

I initially let the flan cook for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, but when I stuck a toothpick in it, the toothpick was not clean, so left it in for two more 10-minute intervals.  The last interval didn’t go all the way to 10, because I just FELT like I needed to take the flan out.  

I took the small tub out of the larger tub and let it cool on the counter before placing the tub in the fridge.  I let it chill overnight, but I think about an hour/hour and a half might suffice.

I took the flan to my Madrina’s (Godmother’s) house this morning for the big moment. 

I placed a plate over the top of the tub and quickly flipped it. Then I ate.  And it was delicious. New memory accomplished.  Old memory restored. 

At the risk of gaining 30 lbs, I’m starting a baking blog.  I don’t claim to know much about baking, but well, I like to bake.  I like to spend hours in the kitchen, rolling dough and burning my hands every time I forget to grab a mitt before pulling a pan out of the oven.  (It happens way more often than I would like to admit, really).  

As I was saying, I don’t know much about baking.  I know that I love to bake sweets, which is ironic considering I don’t like eating them.  But my mind goes completely dumb, and I become a different person when I bake.  A person who doesn’t worry about what her friends and family are up to at the moment, a person who has absolutely nothing going on in the morning, and can stay up till 4 AM in the kitchen, if needed.  I can just enjoy the smells and the texture and the magic of creating something. 

I will admit: I am a bit egotistical when it comes to baking – I live for the audience.  The same can be said about my cooking. Cooking for myself is only good for about 3.5 seconds, until I realize that I am the only person in the whole entire world that gets to enjoy the yummy goodness.  And while there is some intrigue to that reality, it’s a bit lonely.  I’d rather feed people and have them compliment me.  There, I said it, I live for the compliments. Ha. 

But I think the greatest pleasure that comes with baking is the sense of nostalgia that accompanies it.  I was raised in the kitchen.  I come from a family that loves to get together and cook and feed each other.  Every time I bake, I’m reminded of some memory I had when I was a kid, playing sous chef to my uncle.  With certain people in my family, sharing kitchen time is the most intimate way of bonding.  I count myself among those people.  Sometimes, my oldest niece doesn’t understand why I like to bake alone, or why I get frustrated when she doesn’t see the baking through to finish.  It’s because, for me, baking and cooking and feeding is communion.  And if I invite you over for dinner, or I ask that we cook dinner together at a friend’s home, I’m asking for comfort and company. 

So, as I said, at the risk of gaining 35 lbs (or was it 30 at the beginning of this post?), I’m starting a baking blog.  I want to share my thoughts and the nostalgia as I bake.  And even if no one ever reads this blog, I’ll get the sense of that comfort and company.