When My Mind Says Yes But My Stomach...

Glugh--that is the sound of nausea because I can't recall the true expression--I just had a scrambled egg for breakfast, and now my stomach's churning in protest. I should have known better.

There are actually a few foods my mind will not accept, but sometimes my stomach doesn't give a damn what my mind thinks. And ultimately it is my stomach that sets the rules, like no cold water or scrambled eggs for breakfast. I am not a finicky creature, I swear it. But if either of those aforementioned elements makes its way down my esophagus within a few hours of my waking up, I get all queasy. Scrambled eggs for lunch, sunny-side up for dinner--great, no problem. But a breakfast omelet--don't go there.

Unfortunately, unlike normal living creatures with survival instincts, I don't know how to stay away from things that make me sick, rather like the foodie equivalent of an alcoholic, I suppose. Admittedly, I am capable of steering clear of cold water. But who can resist eggs in the morning, I ask you? And if you pair eggs with sausages, well, my mind goes into ecstasy and my stomach wants to heave its guts out.

Then there's my tumultuous relationship with dairy: namely yogurt and hot milk. Again, I am fond of both. I like yogurt with sliced fruit in the morning. But there's something ominous about a very big mouthful of thick yogurt and eating anything more than a teaspoon at a time tickles my gag reflexes just so. In addition, I seem to have a need for hot beverages the way others have an oral fixation, and thus hot milk plays a big role in my life, enriching my coffee, tea, and cocoa. Unfortunately, the smell of hot milk makes me sick to my stomach. A little splash, preferably cold milk added to hot drink, and I manage. But every so often, I'll stop at a coffee shop and the word "latte" just spills out all on its own. The next thing I know, I'm clutching a nice big cup just brimming with hot milk, and I'm gulping (I never am able to slowly sip a hot drink; it must be guzzled for maximum tongue damage and scalded-innards sensation), and then everything is rolling, rolling, rolling. And yet, like a deranged beast bloodied by the hunter, I keep charging back for more. Go figure.

A long time ago, I seemed to possess a little more self preservation. At the age of nine, I was taken over by a kind of Rice Krispies Square delirium. I think I'd recently arrived in Canada and was utterly captivated by the novel concept of sugar overload. When the haze eventually cleared, I did not look at another Rice Krispies Square for over ten years. I seem to have lost that...ability to not want to be nauseated. Isn't that a little disturbing?

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Fruitcake

There are three main parties where fruitcake is concerned: those who like it, those who don't, and me. Yeah, uh huh, I am my own party: the Don't Like It But Want To party. There are endless sub-groups as well: the Like It But Pretend Otherwise coalition, the Scared Off by All Those Carcinogenic-Looking Candied Cherries offshoot, the Only Ever Ate the Supermarket Variety and Yet Think That Gives Them the Right to Look Disdainful faction--it can get convoluted.

My dad being a big fan of fruitcake, I've tasted my fair share. Every Christmas I have a little slice, wondering if this will be the year my palate changes its mind. I did after all use to hate all sorts of things as a child that I now love: butter, eggplant, ice cream that doesn't contain chocolate.

Now, I think I've given fruitcake enough of a chance that I may be permitted to state my disapproval. First of all, those ever-present red and green maraschino cherries really disturb me, not to mention make my tongue instantly curl up in a saccharine-induced kind of seizure. Second, the term "slice" of fruitcake is ridiculous, since what follows the downward motion of the knife is reminiscent of a dried fruit landslide as everything sort of crumbles and scatters all over the place. What is the point of all that labor, chopping and baking and basting for months, if the result is a mouthful of boozed up raisins tenuously held together with a bit of dark spackle?

I didn't start this post merely to lambast the poor fruitcake, however. I think it has been sorely misrepresented for too long. Although I've never tasted good fruitcake, I believe it has the potential to be something...dare I say, yummy? Consider the concept: dark spicy cake studded with fruits and peels, aged for months, and saturated in liquor. When it comes to baking, there's nothing as alluring to me as a troublesome, time-consuming recipe--hence my love of sourdough bread baking, which definitely requires patience. And this fruitcake-making thing sounds like a bloody nuisance. Perfect.

And so I now embark on a quest: to create palatable, no, yummy fruitcake. I'll try to challenge the recipes and go a little easier on the nuts and dried fruit, and there'll be no jujubes or glace cherries winking from my cake like misplaced Christmas lights. Also, I've decided to milk this fiddly endeavor for all it's worth--infusing my liquor with tea, candying my own nuts and peels, soaking the fruit in liquor for a month first, and I think I will let the cake age until next Christmas, seeing as it is practically November now. What I really would love is to make a fruitcake with my sourdough starter, but I can't find a satisfactory recipe (there seems to be only one on the entire world wide web), and considering I might quite possibly collapse in utter despair if an entire year's worth of waiting for my own fruitcake comes to something gross, I will not take that risk.

I'm taking my time on this one. I do have an entire year, after all. Every so often, I'll complete another small step. I don't think I'll actually bake the cake until next month. I promise to keep you all updated. Exciting, eh? Hello? Hello?

Oh, come. This will be fun! And maybe at the end of this project, I'll have something that will change my mind about fruitcakes. And, perhaps, yours as well? My husband's eyes are already rolling with fear, but if anyone wants to try some next year, I will be most happy to share. Or, better yet, does anyone want to join me in my fruitcake odyssey? We could do the same recipe or do different ones. Doesn't matter. Could even keep each other updated and offer advice, such as what to do if one's fruitcake is developing an unattractive bloom of green fur. Mwaha, nonsense, of course!

Perhaps someone else could try what is called a white fruitcake, which uses clear liquors, pale fruit, and presumably no spices--lighter and prettier, I guess. Ummm, tempting.

Promise to keep y'all updated! Oh, stop that moaning.

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Autumn, Thy Name Is Big Jerk

Sorry, Shakespeare, but as I trudged with Edward under yellow skies, bitter cold, and endless leaking rain today, I kept hearing my ugly paraphrase, round and round in my head.

I used to think about the seasons like days of the week:

Winter was Monday to Thursday, a seemingly interminable time span that we soldier through because the entire world is against my idea of breaking things up, making Wednesday an additional day of rest. I know there are those of you out there who think, "How lazy." But really, the tiresome race to be the leading economy could still continue if only human beings were trustworthy and everyone made a pact that no one work on Wednesday; then everyone would proportionately slow down. See?

Spring was Friday, not quite there but with the sweet promise of the weekend making everything just a touch more tolerable, or intolerable, if you really detested your job.

Summer was Saturday, with everyone moving at a slower, more expansive pace, savoring this one short day however they want.

And then there was Autumn, which of course was Sunday, a day shadowed by the looming awareness that whispers: another workweek coming up; still, for what it is worth, we try to enjoy Sunday, though I often find I've barely put on my sandals and the sun's already setting.

That was how I used to see it. To be fair, Spring, Summer, and Winter have remained somewhat reliable. Except that Summer seems to grow shorter every year, and I blame it entirely on Autumn--an increasingly cold, unreliable, big jerk of a season.

What was the weather like today? Biting rain. How about last week? Chilly rain with a dollop of typhoon. And the week before? A seared typhoon served with a spicy typhoon reduction...sorry, I'm getting a bit hungry. My point is that Autumn used to be kind and sympathetic. It knew what was lurking malevolently around the bend, and so it tried its best to ease us gently into Winter's frigid clutches. But now? I don't believe I ever saw milder days followed by nights just a touch cooler. One day it's tank tops and flip flops, the next I find myself freefalling toward winter: icy bed sheets at night, ski socks around the house, oden, the frozen mango smoothie taken off the menu at Tully's, steep slopes of mandarin oranges in the produce section (I do like mandarins, but I wasn't expecting them so soon, and one whiff has me thinking of Christmas. Yuck.)... And the coup de grace: girls in town wearing thick woolen scarves. Scarves, I tell you--which itch and limit air supply. To be fair, young Japanese girls staunchly believe nothing makes them cuter than a long scarf and knee-length socks, so I'm sure there are those who wait all year with bated breath for that first slight dip in temperatures. Still. Still.

But I shouldn't complain. I may be cold inside my home, but there are almost 100,000 people who are cold and homeless because of the earthquake that hit Saturday. I can't help wondering what will happen to the people whose homes were completely destroyed. What if they don't have anybody to turn to? Winter is almost here.

The scary thing about earthquakes is how abruptly they come upon you and how little you can do. On Saturday, there was absolutely nothing, no subtle warm-up vibrations, just the entire ground beneath us swaying out of nowhere. How must it have felt for those people in Niigata who were going about life one second and then feeling their world literally breaking apart in the next. When I was in Des Moines, there was the occassional threat of a tornado, but there were also early warnings. I remember once we were instructed to go down into the basement and wait it out. The tornado never came, but if it had, we would have been safe. When you're in the middle of an earthquake, there's nowhere to run that can ensure complete safety. In fact I read that it's the people who try to "escape" the earthquake by running to find a safe place that are often hurt or killed.

Now I've just learned that 67 people died because of Typhoon 23 last week, and that 20 are still missing.

I know I can't blame Autumn for the earthquake and the other natural disasters, but this really hasn't been its best year.

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Ingredients: 125g Sugar in Dust...

I use Google. I like Google. I don't trust Google's translation tool.

I was Googling for a recipe and came across an interesting-sounding one, except that it was in Spanish. "Want me to 'translate this page'?" Google asked accomodatingly.

Sure, I said, and suddenly found myself looking at a most unusual cake recipe that told me I needed:

-125g sugar in dust
-1/2 a royal stockmarket
-100g you happen
-1 stock market of hemstitched sugar

...among other ingredients. You also need a "furnace"--to bake the cake, I presume--and one step asks you to "throw" the 100g of you happen. Poor you happen, obviously not a valued ingredient. Or perhaps you're supposed to throw you happen into the furnace.

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Sudden Flashback

I was slowly dissolving Bacis (see dancing Bacis without ever having a clue what the devil they are, unless you speak Italian) in my mouth, when I was suddenly hit with a flashback: England, lightening storm, gloomy dining hall, dark oak table, gigantic plastic bowl filled with absolutely revolting watery chocolate pudding, disappointed groans, one bowl per girl, me with spoon fishing around pale swampy mess until I triumphantly unearth...aha, a piece of Mars bar. Has anyone else sampled this atrocity of a dessert that actually makes a mockery of chocolate and forces one to root around in a most undignified manner for the hidden "treasure" of chopped up pieces of Mars bar? Unsurprisingly, I can't remember the name.

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Only the Rich May Eat Iceberg

I was in the supermarket yesterday when I noticed the price for a head of iceberg lettuce: 600 yen, for the love of god (sorry, folks, no conversion service on this blog, but if you're really curious, you can find out easily here.

Isn't that a little overly optimistic? Who wants iceberg that badly?

I read that the price of lettuce has gone up due to the recent string of typhoons. I wonder if the prices of all vegetables have been likewise affected because everything is so damn expensive these days.

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Slightly Shaken

We were just watching TV when everything started swaying--the house plants, the fish tank, the apartment. My husband thought I was fidgeting and making the couch jiggle--gee, thanks, honey. It wasn't such a large earthquake in Tokyo, about 4 on the rector scale. But the entire country was shaken up, and in the Niigata area not that far away, the tremors registered at 6.8. According to the news, it's difficult to even stand in anything higher than a 6.

I couldn't help noticing that throughout the quake as well as the aftershocks, my dog Edward remained sweetly slumbering at our feet. I thought animals were supposed to be highly sensitive to these sorts of things?

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Oh Jeez, Not Another One

Know what hurts?


This.

What the hell is it?

It's what's lurking beneath this:


after mulishly refusing to let go of the pan and leaving behind this:


It was one of those mornings where I could have bounded energetically out of bed, whistling a jaunty tune. No, that would never happen with me. But if I were such a person, that is how the day would have begun. What in fact happened was I was jolted awake by the sound of the delivery man calling my cellphone from directly outside my apartment. One downside to being a girl and having to dash directly from your bed to greet someone at the door is that you have to scrabble desperately through your hopelessly cluttered wardrobe, searching for something to cover your braless state.

Anyhow, parcel received, I brightened when I remembered my sourdough bread that had been rising while I slept and was just about ready to be baked. I peeped. It was risen. Hoorah. Whenever my bread is finally about to go into the oven, I always get this buzzy, anticipatory feeling. Like waiting to open Christmas presents.

I had everything ready. Hot water--check. Spritz bottle--check. Thermometer--check. Oven mitts--check. Popped the bread into the oven. Stood on chair with nose pressed against oven window. And watched my beautiful bread rise up and up!

I admit to having felt rather confident after the previous evening's bun success (see self-congratulatory, and probably dooming, post), and was further fortified by a hot mug of tea and one of those freshly baked buns. The sun had finally come out again. I quickly got the laundry going. Danced about the kitchen with Edward a bit. Got some work done. The whole house smelled so good.

Pulled the bread out after 40 minutes. Temperature: 100'C. Almost perfect. Okay, my loaf had deflated a bit. I think I'd left it to rise too long--about 12 hours. That's okay. It was still lovely.

And then. I tried to get it out of the pan.

I have mentioned before that I own only one pan. A loaf pan. If I want to bake anything in a pan, it will come out 9x5x3, regardless of what the recipe specifies: cakes, muffins, whatever. So I have a great deal of experience getting things out of this pan. I was not worried. This was however the first time I tried baking bread in it. First I gave it a gentle shake, because from past experiences baking boules, I've noticed that bread never seems to stick. The bread did not budge. Okay, no problem. Carefully ran knife along sides. Gave it a tap. Nothing. Tried gently coaxing the bread with my fingers. Nope.

Will not continue this painful account. Needless to say, after a very long time, the bread finally released its tenacious hold on the bottom of the pan, but not without leaving part of itself behind. I guess I should have buttered the pan. The other problem was that the bread was extremely airy and didn't hold up too well under my increasingly ungentle extraction efforts.

This was in fact the San Francisco Sourdough recipe from Sourdough Home, which is very interesting in that, unlike most sourdough recipes that call for up to 1 cup of starter, this one only requires 1/4 cup. I fiddled with the recipe a bit, adding 2 tablespoons of honey and using 1 cup of oatmeal instead of whole wheat flour cause I didn't have any whole wheat. This time I most definitely should have stuck to the recipe. I think I used too much oatmeal, which remained quite gummy even after baking. Also, the bread had a clear sourdough tang--not overpowering but distinct--that would have been really good except that the sweetness from the honey got in the way.

Although Sourdough Home says this recipe works as a sandwich loaf--I want to say I disagree, but it could be my silly meddling with the recipe that caused the texture to change. The inside was very, well, flouffy and was quite difficult to slice.



Despite its flouffiness, strangely, it was also quite chewy, and I thought this bread would have been nicer had it been surrounded by more crisp, brown crust. Unfortunately, although the top of the loaf was gorgeous, the sides and bottom were very white and a wee bit unappealing, the overall effect not unlike a bad farmer's tan. As a free-form loaf, or better yet individual rolls, there would have been lots of crunchy crust to add a much needed textural contrast and a prettier overall look. And if you look at the picture above, the crust really did come out beautifully.

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A Bright Spot In Yesterday's Downpour

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Puffy Buns -- Oh Yeah!

I love the word buns. It can be plain goofy ("Honeybuns" and "Buns of Steel") and it can conjure up images of pure lust. For bread, of course--if I think of someone's butt in terms of the word "buns," all I can see are two gleaming, golden-brown parker house rolls peeking out of a pair of jeans.

It's 4am and I'm trying to be quick about this. I want my bed but I just HAD to announce with trumpet fanfare and every other damn sound of celebration: I just made the most glorious sourdough buns!

I just tasted one and maybe I will have to rescind the "most glorious" bit. But they're still pretty damn good. Very light and... how to describe? You know when you sloooowly pull a bun apart and you see all this stretching of gossamer layers and elastic strands?



It's just like that. I LOVE that.)

And they are almost entirely my creation. Very exciting. My buns (Heh. I know, sorry.) were vaguely conceived after glimpsing a picture of cinnamon rolls on a blog I recently discovered by a lady who...knits, which is admirable, of course, but it is her sourdough recipes I am interested in. More and more, I am attracted to recipes that come with alluring pictures, which is why I'm often inspired to bake when I spot something yummy on a food blog. I trust the photographs more than someone just sticking a recipe up on the Web.

So I had this image of feather-soft cinnamon rolls in my head. But my husband don't like cinnamon rolls. Too sweet. Too messy. He eats things that are easy and convenient. I sigh... Still, I wanted rolled buns, damnit.

Also, yesterday I candied citrus peels (will write about that another time), which I wanted to use in my bread.

Did I mention I used my sourdough starter for this recipe? However, I do have something of a confession to make...

Erm, but it's late. Will continue this tomorrow. But after the previous bread disaster, I just HAD to show you my beautiful buns (I know, sorry).

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Smelly Pancakes and Supermarket Music

Might I indulge in asking two rhetorical questions?

1) Why is something as delightful as pancakes so darn smelly to make? Not smelly in a dried-squid-snack kind of way (which is really a good malodorousness) but in a "fumigate the entire house with the stench of overheated grease" manner. Perhaps it is my cooking technique... Damn, am I incapable of even pancake-making?

2) Have I unknowingly been labeled persona non grata in supermarkets throughout Tokyo? Why does their selection of music seem to suggest a united, sinister ploy to either drive me crazy or discourage me from lingering more than, oh, one second in their well-stocked aisles? It's just that...surely the disco remake of Celine Dion's best hits can't be playing all the time, 10am-8pm, seven days a week? Wouldn't there be consequences? Like the mental disintegration of all the staff? The only conceivable (and humane, for supermarket workers) conclusion is that they have a special tape with my name on it, and when someone sees that girl approaching, they hastily stuff it into the tape deck, and I find myself gritting my teeth over the tubs of miso as Celine cockily yet agonizingly bellows "Baby think twa-ah-ah-ce!" and the little old lady beside me taps her feet in time with the madly plinking piano accompaniment.

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Cheesy Quickbread

For the past month, this house (well, just me really) has sort of been caught up in quickbread-making madness: dark spicy molasses, moist banana, cherry almond, blueberry, chocolate... And now with Autumn full upon us, how else am I to combat my longing for the return of more sweltering days but to embrace the season with a happy favorite: pumpkin?

Quickbreads/muffins are really just a rougher cousin of the cake and thus deplorable breakfast food--my deplorable breakfast food of late. But they're sturdy and survive freezing nicely; thus, if you're someone like myself, who doesn't live with a big family but likes baking, you won't have to eat an entire loaf of banana chocolate chip bread in two days. Although of course you can if you want to. Hmmm, banana chocolate chip, fragrant golden cake with glistening dots of melted bitter chocolate...

Ah...right. Anyhow, my recent quickbread frenzy was born of three factors: (a) I kept finding new tempting recipes; (b) quickbreads are, without contest, the easiest thing to whip up when you're craving something comforting and hot out of the oven; and (c) I had a lot of excess sourdough starter.

To expound on (c), feeding a sourdough starter means mixing in enough flour and water that the original volume is doubled, and I have to do this a couple of times to really wake up my starter after it's been all quiet and dozy in the fridge. This may lead to excess starter on my hands. If I'm lazy busy, I might flush excess starter down the toilet--don't want to choke up the sink and give my husband one more reason to hate my starter--though it pains me to subject even part of my starter to such an ignoble end. I'm also a frugal girl at heart, and flour in Japan is NOT cheap. Thus my extra starter usually ends up in a pancake or quickbread recipe that requires baking soda--the baking soda reacts with the acid in the starter and you get nice, airy baked goods with minimal messing about. After all, I'm supposed to be conserving my energies for making bread, the reason I pull out my starter in the first place.

But more compelling than practical or miserly motives, quickbreads made with sourdough starter are incomparable. I don't want to get all rhapsodic about the subject, but truly I don't feel any real craving for the regular store-bought stuff now that I've had homemade sourdough quickbread. For one thing, although I don't know the scientific whys behind this, I can get away with using very little fat and sugar. To me, there is nothing worse than store-bought muffins that are so syrupy the surface is gummy, and your fingers get all tacky from the briefest contact. Yet what is more pleasurable than tearing into a warm, fluffy muffin with your bare hands? Using sourdough starter, I always get an extremely moist crumb and the most gorgeous, thin but crunchy crust. Roooooo (that is the sound of happy sensual recollection).

For anyone who is worried, I've never been aware of any discernible "sourdough taste." However, if you do want that tang, you can mix the ingredients together minus the baking soda, and let the batter sit overnight; then add the soda just before cooking. One example of this, which I myself am dying to try if only I were to come into the happy possession of a waffle iron, is Nancy Silverton's recipe for crispy sourdough waffles, attempted and reported upon by Alberto of the really nice food blog Il Forno.

Back to my account, and to finally get to the recipe part for the love of god. I was beginning to get a little quickbreaded-out however, when I came across a recipe for a bacon and cheese muffin. Having never had a savory muffin, to my recollection, but with yet again excess starter on my hands, I decided to give it a go.

...with moderate variations, of course:
-made a quickbread because the only pan I own is a loaf pan
-omitted the bacon
-used larger cubes of cheese (not just shredded)
-altered amounts of certain ingredients, and added new ones, to suit my taste

This quickbread was totally gratifying fresh out of the oven, very moist (due in part to the shredded cheese, which completely melts away) but light in texture, each bite accompanied by a little wreath of thyme-infused steam. Even for people who are not ordinarily sweet-muffin fans, this is a fun change from dry toast for breakfast.

The only "problem" for me was that I wish the cheese hadn't melted so completely as to be indistinguishable. Often where the larger gouda chunks had been, only little holes and vaguely cheesy-ish bits remained. I am guessing that gouda has a low melting point. Sorry, not a cheese expert.

One last, rather big lightbulb that popped over my head this morning: I think flecks of olives would be marvelous in this quickbread. I once had an olive cake at a Greek buffet that had potential, but the cake was really too sweet, clashing with the briny black olives. My mouth didn't know whether it was eating dessert or what. But here, the aroma and bite of maybe a 1/4 to 1/3 cup of chopped olives would be perfect.


Gouda Thyme Quickbread
[1 loaf, using 9-inch loaf pan]

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup shredded gouda cheese
1/4 cup gouda cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 egg
200ml sourdough starter*
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tsp fresh thyme
1/4-1/3 cup finely chopped olives**

*For this recipe, I fed the starter oatmeal before using it. I've never encountered anyone else feeding their starter oatmeal, but I do this for quickbreads because I feel the oatmeal contributes toward a moister and tastier quickbread, and feeding it to the starter a few hours before baking gives the oats a chance to soak up some moisture and fully expand. Feel free to feed your starter regular flour however.
**As I wrote earlier, I did not actually use olives but I will the next time I make this and I'm positive it will be good.

1. Get your loaf tin ready: grease it, line it, whatever. (For this recipe, I wasn't in a greasing mood, so I just kind of sloppily pressed a rectangle of tin foil into the bottom of the pan. Surprisingly, my quickbread popped out cooperatively after baking.)
2. Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
3. Dump into bowl: cheese, sugar, salt. Sift on top: flour, baking powder, baking soda.
4. In separate bowl, beat together: egg, sourdough starter, milk, oil, thyme, olives.
5. Gently add flour mixture to egg mixture.
6. With a whisk, stir gently just a few times. Then, holding bowl in one hand, steadily turn it one way while making a "scoop and fold over" motion with the whisk in the other direction to get to any unmixed areas at the bottom and sides of the bowl. Don't go overboard, but make sure there aren't wide stretches of dry flour visible. You can use the flecks of olive as a guide to see if things have been adequately mixed.
7. Pour into pan. (If you are reading this through once before jumping into actually making the quickbread, you can save a few tablespoons of shredded cheese to sprinkle over top, or you can shred a few extra tablespoons. If your batter's already waiting in the pan as you read this, forget the cheese topping, try a generous smattering of ground black pepper.)
8. Bake in oven about 50 minutes or until skewer inserted into middle comes out clean. (I noticed my cheese was getting quite brown, so I covered the whole thing with tin foil 15 minutes before it was done.)
9. Let rest on wire rack 10 minutes before unmolding.
10. Devour completely while it's hot, fluffy, and delicious; or if you insist on pacing yourself, allow to cool, slice up, and freeze.

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Look What the Typhoon Churned Up

Maybe all the wind and rain from Typhoon 22 scrubbed some of the gunk off the neighborhood koi because look what pretty colors I found today:

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Something Really Nice Happened

When I was little, my dad used to always say: there's no such thing as lucky people, just people who work hard. This "talk" usually came when I was interrogated about my lackluster performance in math class, and I patiently explained the injustice of life and how only a lucky few (myself regrettably excluded) found math to be a comprehensible subject.

The question of my unmathematical brain aside, I really am not the luckiest person. When I was a toddler, every single time we went to the park, unseen forces conspired to ensure I toddled right into a big soft pile of dog poop. A day at the park was not complete without that squish, that stench, and that look of resignation on my parents' faces.

By about seven, I had developed a big mouth and the uncanny knack for saying horrible things about people when the subject of my derision, unbeknownst to me (it was always unbeknownst), was in hearing range. It was truly eerie, the way I could "call" people to me. All I had to say was "Marc is a big poo-poo head," and brrrringg, all eyes would drift uneasily to a point beyond my head, and I would just know that if I turned, I would find Marc the Poo-Poo Head standing right behind me.

As I grew older, and for inexplicable reasons was required to endure countless enforced Bingo matches--employed as a "learning tool" by the various educational institutions I attended--I grew indifferent to games of chance or "luck" because, first, I do not find them entertaining and, second, I never ever win (which rather eliminates any potential for excitement).

Anyhow, because I know better, I can never be bothered to participate in lucky draws, lotteries, or anything of that sort. Even when I'm involuntarily entered, due to being a guest at a party for example, I'm not the slightest bit tempted to save the slip of paper I'm given, to find out if my number is called.

Which is why I was totally blown away by a recent email I received from eGullet. The last time someone from that good board contacted me directly, it was to inform me that I had committed plagiarism and that my unlawful post had been removed. (I had copied and pasted a recipe from a food website, thinking that since it was freely accessible to the public, it would thus be acceptable to share with others. Was told that I should have provided only the link to the actual page.). So when I saw I had another message in my member's mailbox, I felt a sinking feeling of dread. God, what had I done now?

Nothing! The message said "I'm pleased to announce the winners of the book drawing," and I saw that I was one of the winners! Book drawing? Huh? Me, a lucky winner? How bizarre.

I had been completely unaware of a book drawing when I participated last week in a Q&A session on eGullet with professional bread baker Peter Reinhart. I had in fact felt rather ridiculous, asking my silly beginner's questions, but I couldn't pass up the chance to get answers from Peter Reinhart, writer of The Bread Baker's Apprentice!

Anyhow, it seems that I have won a copy of Mr. Reinhart's Crust & Crumb, a book I have on my fantasy Amazon Wish List--"fantasy" because although I really have a wish list on Amazon, I'm never actually going to get any of those wonderful, expensive, decadently unnecessary books.

I'm not sure I believe this sudden, freakish, and wondrous occurrence that fairly smacks of the L word--luck, that is. I was practically dancing at the keyboard when I found out the good news. Still, all those years of dog poop, angry stares burning into the back of my neck, and bingo games... I can't quite shake the feeling that this is not really happening. Or rather, this is not going to happen. Until I feel the book in my hands, run my fingers over the pages, I won't allow myself to get too excited. Perhaps there was a mistake. Maybe they won't ship a prize all the way to Japan. All kinds of things could happen.

I shall wait and see. Most likely, in a few days, just before the delivery van departs, my brief brush with luck will have run its course.

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Look What I Found

PG Tips! Yay!

It's just the tea bag form. No high-brow brew or anything. But when I was living in England, it was always cheap, dependable PG Tips. I love that rich terra-cotta color you get when you splash just a bit of milk into a hot cup of tea made from this stuff.

And this is my first cup in years. Ahh, the smell, the taste--definitely brought back a few memories, most involving gloomy weather. Which is befitting considering the stupid sun has apparently gone into hiding despite Typhoon 22 being long gone.

As when comparing any product sold in Japan with its overseas counterpart, this little box of 40 seemed rather miniscule but was all that was available. I remember boxes of tea in UK being much much bigger. I used to love opening a new box, and seeing all those (maybe, hundreds of??) tea bags neatly lined up, row after row, like soft little aromatic soldiers; and that first dusty waft of tea rising up--hmmm, nice! Anyhow, my PG Tips discovery was made in that store in the Ebisu train station that sells a lot of imported food stuff.

And that's the sad truth, everyone. I have to go to a specialty store to find PG Tips. Ah well, at 450 yen (approximately), and thus being comparable in price to the much more common--ugh--Lipton ("ugh" because in my opinion, Lipton tea bags taste like hot water with bitter red dye), I will happily keep going to Ebisu to get my fix of PG Tips!

I leave you with a steamy shot of my first brewing cuppa (yet unstirred):



Recent update: Sadly, it seems PG Tips was not well received in that particular store in Ebisu--or anywhere in Tokyo, as my fruitless searches seems to imply--because I've been back a few times but PG Tips...isn't there! Alas, that's the way it is with imported goods in Japan.

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Gah -- My Heart! My Bread!

Holy crap, I just had THE most unnerving baking experience of my life! Well, except maybe for that very first time I baked chocolate chip cookies when I was ten and I mistakenly read "1 cup" of baking soda (rather than "1 tsp", for you non-bakers), and the inside of my oven turned into a cookie dough reenactment of the eruption of Krakatoa (the roiling, bubbling dough was literally hurling itself over the side of the pan). Oh, and the time I tried making croissants--terrifying.

Hoooo. Big, steadying breath.

Oh god, my bread! Everything was fine. Okay, yes, the dough was very wet yesterday night; it did not feel like a baby's butt--except my bread dough never feels like a baby's butt. But then I've never actually felt a baby's butt, so maybe it does and I just don't know it. On the other hand, I sure as hell hope babies' butts don't feel all clammy and gooey because that would just be plain gross. Who the hell came up with that comparison anyway? How are people without children supposed to KNOW?

Okay, I'm just ranting cause of... waaah, my bread!

Here's what happened. I took out the banneton (reality: colander lined with cotton table mats) with my dough that had been resting in the fridge for about 15 hours.



Confidently tried to lift up a flap of table mat to get my first glimpse of the dough wrapped snugly inside... That's when the first challenge presented itself (this has never happened to me before, so I guess last night's dough was even wetter than my usual): the fringe on the table mats were firmly glued to my dough. Carefully peeled back each piece of fringe, causing little erupted spikes of dough to appear all over on the surface. No worries, I told myself, heart starting to beat a bit faster. This is the underside, anyway, so no one will see. Uh huh.

'Kay, so I could see things were a little softer than I was used to. Also, I used a different flour last night, and found that I had to add two extra cups to produce something a little less like cake batter. I therefore had a much bigger piece of dough to balance on my peel (reality: puny cheese cutting board).

Took a deep breath, turned the dough out onto my open palm. And promptly felt the dough oozing down between my fingers. NOT supposed to happen. Usually the dough sits like a good, cold, dry little lump in my hand. Heart started to thump a little harder.

Quickly eased dough onto the peel. And if the dough reallly had been like a baby, it would have been gurgling happily as it sagged limply over the sides of the board.



Yes, my fault for not having a real peel. But come on, I'm just a home baker, and usually just baking for one. That would just be too sad. And where would I keep it? In the umbrella stand?

Still blissfully unaware of the perilous situation literally unfolding before me, I calmly captured this shot.

Then the first real fright. I took my lame (reality: meat cleaver...



because it's the least-used blade in the house and therefore the sharpest!) and my first slash into the dough revealed... what looked like pancake batter. Oh my god! As the possibility that my dough was going to start flowing all over the counter flashed through my mind, I snatched up the kitchen scissors, snipped five slashes, scooped up the laden peel, turned to the oven, and cursed my typical hastiness. Most people know that I'm short. I actually need a little chair to stand on to comfortably slide things in and out of the oven (The oven IS on top of the fridge! Stop snickering.). But the chair was gone and my dough was trying to slide down my wrist.

So I yanked that oven door oven--by this point, heart pounding--and literally had to scoop and scrape my dough onto the hot baking pan, on tiptoe, with arms raised at an awkward level above my head. This was extremely distressing on so many levels. To handle my dough in such a rough manner. To watch it slop onto the pan in a mangled heap. To think of all those delicate gas bubbles getting squished. Sob.

Let me tell you something for those who have never baked bread. If you throw a cake batter together, AND you've got an electric mixer, it takes mere minutes. Pour the batter into the pan. Done. Bread on the other hand can take hours, days. Then there's the kneading, which actually makes me break into a sweat (I'm not a sweaty person); the turning and folding; the shaping; then more waiting. It's a commitment. And when something like this happens after all that time and work, I swear to god, it makes me start shouting like a crazy woman in the middle of my kitchen. I think the neighbors have heard me and they're scared.

Back to the story, I then hastily grabbed the frying pan of boiling water (had in my panic forgotten to transfer dangerous hot liquid into more manageable mug), went on tiptoe again, and blindly poured water into the pan on the floor of the oven.

[time lapse]

Ah weeell, my bread is out of the oven now, and despite its absurd shape, I still feel a pure burst of pleasure when I look at it. Sort of like a mother glancing down at her butt-ugly baby in adoration--it's homely, but it's hers. I can't imagine what it will look like on the inside. Have to wait two hours. But there was considerable oven spring despite all my rough handling and all that liquid spreadage. I think if I were to bury it near the site of an archeological dig, its discovery would cause quite a stir.

Archeologist #1: My god, would you look at this thing.
Archeologist #2: I thought at first that it was a boulder. Nearly broke my back trying to lift it.



Archeologist #1: The mind boggles trying to judge its date. It's just so obviously primitive. I think I'm getting goosebumps. What the devil have we stumbled upon, George?

And here I leave you with some pictures to judge for yourselves. And once you have seen them, let it never be said that the author of this blog ever chose self-glorification over the ugly, gratuitous truth about exactly what comes out of her oven.



Journalistic integrity and all that.



You know, if I had shown photos of my baking to Martha Stewart and threatened to sell them to the press, told everyone they were records of her "earlier work," I think she would have been scared. I think she would have broken down and admitted to anything.



In addition, an interior shot:


Final verdict: very weird bread. Just can't make it out. As you can see, there is a very tight crumb, with just a smattering of larger holes. The bread is damp, again. When I chew on it, it makes a very wet-sponge squishing noise. A bit bland. I grudgingly confess: not the yummiest. Sigh. Will keep trying.

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Just doing what I'm told

Was devouring an extremely light and flaky croissant--made even lighter and flakier after a few minutes in the oven--for lunch today when a buttery shard flew into my left eye. That's the second foreign object to enter my eye in a week, dammit! But this time, I guess because it was really nothing more than a flake of fat, it must have melted and the discomfort was almost instantly gone. And, in true Homer Simpson style, I did not let a thing like a greasy wounded eyeball deter me from polishing off the rest of my tuna, gouda, and tarragon croissant sandwich--gararar, mmmm, croissant sandwich...

Although I love croissants, it is highly unusual for me to go out and buy one. And eat one for lunch. It's too flimsy and insubstantial for me to consider it a real meal. But this morning, I saw a croissant very clearly in my mind, especially that tender white heart of the croissant, hidden moistly within its golden shell--with that image dangling before me, I hustled out to my local supermarket (because I am ever a slave to my stomach's desires), which puts out damn good bread for a supermarket, might I add.

And came home with my croissant and an an donut. Eh? What's an an donut? EH?? Croissant AND donut? Yes. And it was a big, puffed-up daddy of a donut too.

In answer to the first "Eh?", have you ever heard of An Pan Man? He's that jolly Japanese superhero with an An Pan for a head, which he often tears off his body to give to hungry children. What a nice guy. Well, An Pan is a simple round butter roll filled with dark red bean paste. So an an donut is a donut stuffed with red bean paste. Which can be good. But is not something that I usually go for.

What the heck is going on then? In answer to the second "EH??", it's thaaaat time of the month, ladies and gentlemen!

Some women cry a lot when they get PMS. Some get angry. Some women take an ax to the TV set--or the husband watching the TV set. I get even hungrier than I ordinarily am, and I tend to hunger for what some picky people might term "things that aren't good for you." Yeah, whatever.

I trust my body completely. If it says it needs both the croissant and the donut, I say okay.

The donut was wonderful. What is the source of that tantalizing aroma that only a donut possesses? Ya, I know, oil and dough thrown together. But puleez!--don't ruin the magic for me, alright? Anyhow, it was a pillowy globe of a donut that made that "cushhh" deflating sound when I bit into it--gararar, doooonut.

And the croissant--like a feather in my hand. How can something so insubstantial have any calories, I ask you? And as I savored my first bite, it occurred to me that eating this croissant was like eating warm buttery snowflakes that quickly melt on the tongue.

After my croissant lunch, I was slumped against the window feeling *really* happy. No desire to cry, get angry, or hurl axes at anything or anyone. Ahhh. Life is good. See? My body knows best.

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