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Kale with white beans, raisins and tomatoes

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Kale white beans and tomatoes

Kale white beans and tomatoes

How strange it is to one day wake up and find yourself the age that you are, whatever age that may be. And find yourself living where you do, wherever that may be, and living with the people you live with, whomever they are, (and still uncertain when to use who or whom, despite your best attempts to learn). How strange to find that you still struggle with all the things you’ve ever struggled with, although some are stronger or weaker now, some are just nagging shadows of old worries, and some threaten unexpectedly to drown you, on a bad day. How strange to hope for the things you hope for, and work at the things you work at, and find that they haven’t changed all that much since you were a child, and how strange that you’re not still a child. And where did this dog come from? How did she end up here, of all places? It’s a funny discombobulation, sometimes, to look at your life from the perspective of your former or future self, and to walk around your world dizzy with the speed that everything is going. I made a joke yesterday that I’m a bon vivant who spends my days making witty quips and drinking champagne cocktails. I’m so obviously not a bon vivant. I’m not quick enough for clever witticisms, and I don’t even like champagne, it gives me a headache. (Although I do like bitters!) And yet, I do believe that I am a bon vivant, in the sense of a person living well. I think my former self, though somewhat shocked at the age that I am, would be gladdened and cheered to see where I live and whom I live with. I think she’d be satisfied with all that we have, and with all that we try to do with it. She’d be encouraged by the persistence in focus of hopes and works. And of course she’d love the dog. And I think that my present self had damn well understand all this with great alacrity, given the relentless pace of time passing, before she creates regrets for my future self!

Kale with white beans, raisins and tomatoes

Kale with white beans, raisins and tomatoes

If she’s not talking about beets she’s talking about beans and greens! Sheesh. But I love beans and greens! And I particularly like them prepared this way. This is a fairly traditional treatment of kale, I think…cooked with white beans and garlic. But there are two special sneaky things that make this different. One, it has raisins in it. Just a small handful of golden raisins, chopped up, but it lends a subtle sweetness which goes nicely with the kale’s bitter edge. And two, it has a small amount of red wine, which gives it a nice rich warmth. I put small cubes of mozzarella in, which gave it a nice meltyness, and made it nice to eat with crusty bread. The boys ate it with orchiette pasta, but it would also be good with couscous, farro or bulgur, or even rice.

Here’s Once in a Lifetime, by Talking Heads

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Roasted beet and red pepper salad with pistachios and goat cheese

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Roasted beet and red pepper salad with pistachios and goat cheese

Roasted beet and red pepper salad with pistachios and goat cheese

People rarely ask me what I do. At the parties we attend–the fairly constant stream of casual gatherings, galas, brunches and luncheons—very few people say, “And what do you do, Claire.” Perhaps this is because I’m so obviously a bon vivant. One look at me and you instantly know that I spend my days composing bons mots and drinking champagne cocktails, watching the bubbles float upwards from a bitters-soaked sugar cube with a dreamy look on my face. Or maybe it’s because I dress like a giant five-year-old ragamuffin, and it seems cruel to ask, because I so obviously do nothing all day except make songbirds out of legos and nap with the dog. I think my tax return describes me as a homemaker. It’s a nice word, I suppose…much better than “housewife.” It’s got an active, creative element, and home is certainly one of my favorite words and one of my favorite concepts. It’s a big responsibility to make a home, and I’ll take it! I only think of myself as a waitress when I’m actually waiting tables, or sometimes when I realize that I can’t enter or exit a room without something in my hands, generally as many things as I can carry. And of course I’m a mom all the time, but that’s bigger than what I do, that’s what I am, among so many other things. I’ve decided lately that it’s important to decide what I do, not so that other people can define me by my employment or by the way that I make money, but as a way that I can decide for myself what it is that’s important for me to do. In the unlikely event that somebody asks me what I do, I’m almost fairly certain that I would say “I write.” If they ask me what I write, would I wander away, babbling awkwardly and incoherently? I don’t think I would, because I’ve also decided that I’m working towards something bigger than I’d realized. I realized this by deciding it, and it feels good (most of the time, if I can keep self-doubt and criticism and inertia at bay). I’ve incorporated all of the other things I do into this one bigger thing, because of course I’ll write about my sons and my customers at the restaurant, I’ll write about making a home, and all the ways that people do that. With this decision it’s become okay that I walk around the world with a constant stream of words flowing through my head. I no longer feel as crazy about this, because I can now give that stream a focus and direction; I’ve made a little pile of rocks to channel it, just like the boys do in the creek in summertime. I’ve made a little rivulet of thoughts which will grow wider and stronger and stretch its tired riverbanks, and eventually reach the sea! All by deciding what I do…what I can do, what I must do, what I will do.

Roasted beet and pepper salad.

Roasted beet and pepper salad.

I’ve said it was beet season again, and here’s more proof. It’s coldish today, but we had a lovely warm week last week (people were complaining about how hot it was! I bet they miss it now, though!) I think there’s nothing nicer on a chilly-warm fall day than a warm salad. I roasted the peppers and beets, and then piled them on a bed of arugula, tomatoes from the farm, and fresh basil. I rolled some small pieces of goat cheese in chopped pistachios, and then warmed those, as well, so they were soft and melty. Very nice, altogether. As with any salad, use what you have and what you like, whatever you’ve picked from your garden or farm or grocery store shelves. I’ve left the amounts vaguer than usual even, because you can use whatever proportions you like!!

Here’s I am I be, by De La Soul.
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Roasted beets, mushrooms and butterbeans

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Roasted mushrooms, beets, and butterbeans

Roasted mushrooms, beets, and butterbeans

Nonsense! Gobbledygook! Gibberish! Balderdash! Folderol! Some days this is all I feel capable of speaking. Today, for instance, I’m having trouble putting a whole sentence together in a sensible or intelligible way. Some people take nonsense to a whole new level, and it becomes a language all its own, articulate, even eloquent. And then they set it to music and it becomes a thing of beauty. And that is the subject of today’s Sunday interactive playlist…songs with a language all their own. We’ve been listening to a lot of Slim Gaillard, and he speaks Vout, of course, but songs with scat in them, songs in a language the singer doesn’t understand, any song that separates the sound of the words with any meaning, these are the songs we’re looking for this week.
Roasted beets, mushrooms and butterbeans

Roasted beets, mushrooms and butterbeans

We’re back to beet season! We got some pretty beets from the farm. I roasted them, and roasted some mushrooms, and then I sauteed the beet greens with big juicy butterbeans. Then we tossed it all together and ate it with some farro. Tasty.

Here’s a link to the interactive playlist. Add what you like, or leave a comment and I’ll try to remember to add it through the week.

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Grilled polenta with chard, black beans and pepito-sage-goat cheese sauce

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Polenta with smoked gouda and sage

Polenta with smoked gouda and sage

This morning on the way to school, Isaac informed me that after tonight there will be two days to three weeks to Halloween. This boy loves Halloween, he really gets it. Not just the candy and costumes, but all of the darkness, too. He loves the skeletons and ghosts and ghouls. He’s going to be a devil captain (spoiler alert!) if anybody will give him nine dollars so he can buy the mask that Malcolm told him about which he’s never seen but is completely obsessed with. So, as devil-captain, he’s going to drive the boat that takes people to hell. Instead of “Land, ahoy!” He’s going to shout, “Hell, ahoy!” Not in school you’re not, I said. He knows. The other day he made an origami grim reaper first thing in the morning, and the whole way to school he said, “Death is upon us!” (just like it says in the origami book.) I have to admit, it’s a little disconcerting to hear my bright cheerful boy say things like this! (We’ve always said that his first album should be called “Little Mister Sunshine and His Dark Thoughts.”) But on our bike ride this morning everything slid into a different perspective. The spooky Halloween mist burned off to reveal all the birds doing their best Audobon poses in the raggedy glowing golden trees. The trees dying for the year and they’re more beautiful than ever, more fragrant than ever, and the birds are in tizzy getting themselves ready for winter. Halloween marks the real death of summer, the end of the harvest, a time of darkness and cold. But this is also a time when the spirits of the dead come back to visit us, when it’s easier for them to make their presence known. This is uncanny, in the sense that we can’t know it or understand it, but it’s not necessarily frightening. It’s all part of the cycle of death and rebirth, light and darkness–Isaac’s bright delight in the darkness of the day, the goblin-glow of jack-o-lanterns, the walnut trees dropping their seeds with gentle thumps in the dusty towpath, where they’ll split and rot and shed their sharp-sweet green fragrance, and someday grow again. Everything will come back in the spring, and Isaac will love that time, too.

Polenta, chard, black beans and pepito sauce

Polenta, chard, black beans and pepito sauce

I made polenta! Although it’s a well-known vegetarian staple, I don’t make polenta very often. I added some smoked gouda, smoked paprika, and sage, and then I put it under the broiler until it was smoky and crispy. It wasn’t grilled ON a grill, it was grilled under a grill, in the oven. Although you could try grilling it the regular way if you like. So I cut it in wedges, broiled it till crispy, and then topped it with chard sauteed with red peppers and black beans, a pumpkinseed-goat cheese sauce and some more smoked gouda. Fancy. A nice combination of earthy, smoky, sweet and tart.
Pepito goat cheese sauce

Pepito goat cheese sauce

Here’s Mikey Dread’s Pre-dawn Dub. It’s spooky!
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Kale, red lentil, and kidney bean tacos

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Kale, kidney bean and red lentil tacos

Kale, kidney bean and red lentil tacos

Yesterday I read an article comparing John Donne to Robert Burns. I wish I could find it again, but I cannot. To awkwardly paraphrase, the author said that both Donne and Burns, whatever the differences in their language and their intellectual processes, could not help but express themselves with great honesty and humanity. Of course I love this idea! And I started thinking about their poetry, and my wandering mind lit upon The Flea and To a Louse. Two clever and witty poems addressed to insects (or are they bugs?) John Donne’s is saucily seductive, and Burns’ is a sort of beautifully off-kilter philosophical musing on pretensions and social equality. In keeping with my plan of sharing the words of others’ this week at The Ordinary, I present to you:

THE FLEA

BY John Donne

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

TO A LOUSE

On Seeing One On A Lady’s Bonnet, At Church
1786

by Robert Burns

Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho’, faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her-
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar’s haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whaur horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye’re out o’ sight,
Below the fatt’rels, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right,
Till ye’ve got on it-
The verra tapmost, tow’rin height
O’ Miss’ bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an’ grey as ony groset:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,
Wad dress your droddum.

I wad na been surpris’d to spy
You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,
On’s wyliecoat;
But Miss’ fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do’t?

O Jeany, dinna toss your head,
An’ set your beauties a’ abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie’s makin:
Thae winks an’ finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!

And to round it all off, from Emily Dickinson, another poet who glows with emotional honesty and humanity, despite or because of her eccentricity, we offer

THE SPIDER HOLDS A SILVER BALL

Emily Dickinson

The spider holds a Silver Ball
In unperceived Hands–
And dancing softly to Himself
His Yarn of Pearl–unwinds–

He plies from Nought to Nought–
In unsubstantial Trade–
Supplants our Tapestries with His–
In half the period–

An Hour to rear supreme
His Continents of Light–
Then dangle from the Housewife’s Broom–
His Boundaries–forgot–

Because everybody wants to read about bugs and insects on a food blog, right? We got some lovely kale from the farm, and I made it into tacos, with kidney beans and red lentils. I thought the contrasting textures of the beans would be nice, and it was! These are simply flavored, with sage and lime. We ate them with warm tortillas, basmati rice, grated sharp cheddar and chopped tomatoes. This mixture would be nice simply served over farro or bulgar as well, though, or as a side dish.

Instead of a song, today, we’ll give you Robert Carlyle reading Robert Burns’ To a Louse.
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Pumpkin butter cake with pecans and chocolate chips

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pumpkin-butter-pecan-cakeIt’s David’s birthday and I’m baking up a storm. I lay awake part of the night thinking about what I’d bake, and now I’m doing it and it is the most fun to cook when you think of it as a present for somebody you love. Last week I mentioned that I was experiencing a certain fatigue with my own tired and tiring voice, so I thought this week I’d let guest speakers do some talking and fill in with some words I never would have thought of stringing together, but thank heavens that somebody did. Today’s guest is John Donne, with a love poem. It is, of course, for David, and would be even if it wasn’t his birthday.

THE GOOD-MORROW

BY John Donne

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

It might have been written by an English poet in the 17th century, but every one of the words ring true and glow like burning coal, like they were written in my soul from me to you, except maybe the ones I don’t understand, although they convey a sort of mystery which is not inappropriate. (Still borrowing words! I bet Dylan liked Donne.) I was fascinated to read that the cartographical references in the last stanza might refer to a different kind of map than the one we’re familiar with. They might refer to a heart-shaped map that shows different worlds at once. I read this on wikipedia, so it might be nonsense, but it’s still a pleasing idea.

Pumpkin butter cake

Pumpkin butter cake

I made a cake with pumpkin butter in it!! This means it’s a little juicier, spicier and sweeter than a cake made with pumpkin puree. It’s important to adjust the spiciness and sweetness according to your particular brand of pumpkin butter. (Although you can’t really go wrong!!) I made a crumbly topping of pecans and chocolate chips, and baked them right into the cake.

Here’s If Not for You by Bob Dylan.

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Roasted pepper and tomato tart with almond-hazelnut crust

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Pepper and tomato tart with hazelnut almond crust

Pepper and tomato tart with hazelnut almond crust

I fell asleep while watching cave of forgotten dreams. I regret it, of course, but at the time I was powerless against the great wave of sleepiness. I’d worked all day, and we’d been busy, and the film is so quiet and dreamy, Herzog’s narration so sweet and sleepy…well, that’s my excuse. I didn’t miss much, I didn’t sleep for very long. In a way, though, it seems perfect to have fallen asleep during this film, this beautiful film. It’s as though the film itself became a part of my dreams, dreams I will never forget because they’re marked on stone and captured on film. The movie has a sort of dream-like logic to it that I love: When faced with something that you don’t understand, follow it farther and deeper than you would have thought possible. Even as you’re exploring, and you realize that you will never understand, you keep looking, because the mystery itself is so beautiful. As circus performer-turned-archaeologist Julen Monney tells us, “it’s a way to understand things which is not a direct way.” This is exactly what I love. I love the idea of looking at something from the side, or from some angle we can’t even imagine. Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a small glimpse into the Chauvet Cave in Southern France. These caverns contain the oldest cave paintings yet discovered, and they’re remarkable. They show bears and lions and rhinoceros and jaguars, creatures you can’t imagine living in the South of France. The pictures are layered one upon another in a marvelous design. The paintings are beautifully rendered, stylized but so well-observed you believe whoever painted them must have spent hours watching the animals. Their faces are wise and almost sweet, or so it seemed to me. They’re almost all in profile, except for one bison who looks right at you. Some are surrounded by layers of rippling silhouette as if to show movement. There are no paintings of human figures, and no human bones were found in the cave. The only sign that these marks were made by humans is a wall of palm prints, made by distinct individuals, and a footprint made by an eight-year-old boy. The boy’s footprint is next to that of a wolf, and we’ll never know if they were friends or prey. I think I must have fallen asleep through the part of the film in which they discuss the humans of the time in greater detail. I have glimpses of memory of this. But I’m almost glad to have missed this part, because to me a huge part of the wonderful power of the paintings is that they seem deeper than human achievement or understanding. Julien Monney went down in the cave for five days, and then he decided not to go down any more. He said it was too moving, too powerful. Every night he was dreaming of lions–real lions and painted lions. He wasn’t scared of them, but he had a feeling of powerful things and deep things. He said that we need to find a way to look at the cave paintings. Where would he start to look for this new way of looking? Everywhere. He tells the story of an archaeologist in Australia traveling with an aboriginal guide. They came upon some cave paintings that were thousands of years old, and fading and crumbling. His guide started to touch up the paintings. The archaeologist asked him why he would do that, and he replied that he wasn’t doing it, he wasn’t painting, it was only the hand of the spirit. You have the feeling, when looking at the Chauvet paintings, that this is the only explanation for this beautiful series of pictures. They were painted in the same style, but hundreds of years apart. Cave bears have scratched at the walls below the pictures and across the pictures, as though they were trying to add to them, or to make them disappear. I’ve always believed that humans aren’t the center of everything, that there’s some spiritual force in the earth and the air that we can’t control or understand. Maybe the animals understand it better than we do because they’re not always making noise like we are. In a strange way these cave paintings seem to reinforce these ideas. Whatever was captured in the cavern, we were part of it, but not the only part, not the most important part. And Herzog ends with shots of a nuclear power plant near the caves, and he tells us that in Lascaux, mildew formed by the breath of tourists caused the paintings to deteriorate. It gives you a powerful feeling that we have to stop destroying things, stop making noise, stop taking things apart in order to understand them. We have to keep silent, and watch and listen and feel.
Roasted pepper tart with tomatoes, olives, and hazelnuts

Roasted pepper tart with tomatoes, olives, and hazelnuts

This tart was loosely inspired by romesco sauce. The hazelnuts, almonds and smoked paprika are in the crust, and the garlic, roasted peppers and tomatoes are in the filling. And all the flavors blend nicely together. I also added some different kinds of cheese–goat cheese and smoked gouda, and some olives and capers for briny goodness.

Here are some songs from the soundtrack of Cave of Forgotten Dreams. It’s very haunting!

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Crispy spicy semolina-crusted sweet potato fries

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Semolina crusted sweet potato fries

Semolina crusted sweet potato fries

Here at The Ordinary, they call me “oblivia.” I’m not the most observant person on the planet. I’ve been known to watch the same movie twice and not even notice until I was halfway through. I feel as though I’m reasonably observant about people and books, but when it comes to music or art, I tend to let it wash over me, so I get the full effect, but I often miss the details. Some songs, though, I pay closer attention to. This is because they have one part, one moment, that I find very exciting. It could be a strange instrument, a strange rhythm, a sample, a noise. Usually it’s not throughout the whole song, which is why it gets my attention. So this week’s Sunday interactive playlist is a little complicated. We’re looking for songs with a particular unexpected moment that you look forward to, that you pay attention to. For instance, the bagpipe in Belle and Sebastian’s Sleep the Clock Around. The clanging noises in 16 shells from a 30.6 (honestly, listen for it, it makes no sense but it makes perfect sense.) The xylophone at the end of Gone Daddy Gone, when it gets all synchopated (that is a xylophone, right?). All of Nina Simone’s little asides in Nina’s Blues. The Jaws and Psycho samples in Beastie Boys’ Egg Man. This list will take a little thought and a bit of explanation. Especially for me, because as well as being oblivious my memory is useless. So I know there are more songs, but they’re not coming to me just at the moment. Add songs if you like (the list is collaborative) or leave a comment, and I’ll try to remember to add them for you.
Semolina crusted sweet potato fries.

Semolina crusted sweet potato fries.

I like sweet potato fries, but often they’re mushy and disappointing. Not when they’re crusted with spices and semolina flour!! This way they’re crispy outside and soft inside. Perfection. I used a blend of “sweet” and “savory” spices, but you can use any blend you like. And you could use herbs instead of spices, if you want. I also used a mix of white and orange sweet potatoes, but either would do.

Here’s a link to that playlist, as it stands so far. I’ll be thinking about it all day at work, so I’ll have more to add later.

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Harvest pie with potatoes, tomatoes and basil

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End of summer pie

End of summer pie

Autumn is a good season for time travel. Not extensive trips involving complicated machines, but small, simple glimpses into the past. Maybe it’s the way scents travel in the clear air, or the way the light seems more slanting and golden, but for the last few days I keep finding myself in some other time of my life. Not that I’m just reminded of another time, but for a moment I’m there. I’m a child walking to school in England, or a twenty-three year old walking through the world with my new friend David. For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days about time passing. Not in the usual way that I think about it passing in my life or in the lives of people I love or in the seasons changing, but on a larger scale, a bigger cycle, about how the world has changed so much and is constantly changing, but under all the clutter and confusion people haven’t changed that much. We still all want the same things: someplace safe to rest our head when we’re tired, enough food to eat, sunshine when it’s chilly and shade when it’s warm. People have probably always struggled, as we do now, to free ourselves from the burden of being hopelessly, irredeemably, the center of our own universe so that we could be kind to others, and see everything around us with more clarity.

End of summer pie

End of summer pie

Here’s a good pie for the change in seasons! It’s like a pizza, so you can call it that if you want. I made the crust much thicker than I usually make my pizza crust, so it would be comfortingly soft and strong enough to hold up to all the toppings. All the herbs and vegetables are from our farm. I like potatoes on a pizza, it’s one of those things that shouldn’t work, but somehow does. I parboiled these and then tossed them in a little olive oil, so they’re soft but just starting to crisp up. I love the combination of tomatoes, potatoes and basil, but you can add any kind of vegetables or cheese or herbs you like on here.

Here’s Good Feeling by the Violent Femmes. I’ve been listening to them a lot lately…talk about a portal to the past!!

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Almond ricotta and jam cake

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Ricotta jam cake

Ricotta jam cake

Sometimes I get so tired of my own voice. Partly this is because I talk a lot. To any person or dog who will listen to me. Partly it’s because I write this Ordinary nonsense nearly every day, going on and on and on about whatever flighty thought flits through my brain. David, on the other hand, is a very thoughtful talker. He thinks before he speaks, in stark contrast to my constant thoughtless chatter. He said that sometimes, halfway through a sentence, he’ll decide that what he’s saying isn’t all that important, and he’ll just stop talking. As it happens, most of what he says is smart, funny, and worth hearing. So today I’m going to let him do a guest post, whether he likes it or not, and give my tired and tiring voice a rest. (She says after having gone on and on about how she’s not going to go on and on!) It’s here, at Antick’s website, and I really love it. Here’s a picture from it.
phyffe

Almond-ricotta jam cake

Almond-ricotta jam cake

I bought some fresh ricotta at Trader Joe’s, and there’s a warning inside that says once it’s opened it has to be used right away! I used some in a savory tart, and I had about a cup left over, so I decided to make a cake with it. It’s not a cheesecake, because it has flour and ground almonds in it, but it is a dense, satisfying cake. I also splurged on some bonne maman four fruits jam, and that features prominently here as well. Again, this is an easy cake to make, I used the food processor for the whole thing.

Here’s the White Stripes with Black Jack Davey.

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