Category Archives: recipe

Shortbread cookies with secret chocolate chips (piped cookie recipe!)

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shortbread---pipedThis is a difficult time of year, here at The Ordinary’s institute for cheerfulness studies. We haven’t seen the sun in weeks, and we keep reading articles about why certain days in January are the most miserable days of the year. (♫ It’s … the most … miserable time … of the year! ♪) It can be hard to keep the spirits up. But this morning, we think we might have developed a break-through method in merriness training. Like all discoveries, it happened by chance, in the field. Let me set the scene for you. It was a wet morning, the streets were slick and dark, the sidewalks a maze of mud and puddles. It was one of those days when the water seems to come up from the ground, or from the damp and despondent air, because there’s none falling from the sky. Isaac decided to take his brand new bright blue umbrella to school. Isaac is a slow walker at the best of times, but an umbrella makes him so slow he might as well be going backwards. He twirls it, he holds it ahead of him like a shield, he holds it behind him like a sail, he stops to pick at the broken parts, studying them intently. The only time it’s held above his head is when he charges forward a few steps and leaps, seeing if the umbrella will bear him aloft. He claims to have flown a few steps, and I have to tell you that I believe him. Now, I understand the value of cheerfulness. Most of the time I try, I make an effort. I know that people with a lot less reason to be cheerful than me do a much better job, and they are my heroes. But I fail miserably sometimes. This morning, for instance. Why does the dog need to pull my arm off to reach every fetid bit of garbage? Why does Isaac have to stall in the middle of the street? Why do my feet get so cold and wet? Why does his dizzy winding path lead him directly to every puddle, so that I have to imagine him sitting all day with cold wet feet, and think about how he’s got a cold coming on? Well, we finally made it to school, and it began to rain in earnest. Freezing rain that clung as ice to every slick surface. I gave Isaac a kiss and took his umbrella. I held it over my head, quite low and close, so that it became my whole world – and what a world – it was like moving in the world of Isaac’s imagination, radiant and joyful, my own private dome of bright blue sky. Umbrellas! The secret is umbrellas! Imbued with the buoyant thoughts of those who have held them! A traveling bubble of shelter and inspiration! Catch hold, and see if you don’t fly for a few steps! Here is further evidence to substantiate our findings, drawn from the extensive research of our colleagues. See if this doesn’t cheer you up…
1856_hiroshige_atake

Or this…
chrisrobin_pooh_umbrella

Or this (starting at 2:47)

piped shortbread cookies

piped shortbread cookies

Or little cookies shaped like umbrellas! I only just noticed that they’re shaped like umbrellas, so it’s a coincidence. Or maybe they’re shaped like the snails that come out after the rain. I was playing with my new piping bag toy, and I thought I’d make cookies. I used my fairly standard shortbread cookie recipe, with slight alterations so that it might hold its shape. I piped little nests (and littler nests) and then hid chocolate chips inside, and piped a top on. Because I’m crazy!! These cookies would be just as good if you mixed the chips right in and dropped them from a spoon onto the sheet, and they’d take a lot less time to make, but they’d be a lot less fun, too! I used salted butter and added a bit of salt, so they have a nice, salty, sweet, crunchiness to them.

Here’s Rihanna’s Umbrella.
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Roasted butternut-choux nests with spinach, pecans and smoked gouda

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Butternut choux nest with spinach, pecans and smoked gouda

Butternut choux nest with spinach, pecans and smoked gouda

Last night Malcolm and I walked down to the river. It had been cloudy all day, and the sky was still thick and pale and glowing. When we reached the middle of the bridge, Malcolm told me to look down the river upside-down, so I did. Dizzyingly beautiful! The clouds and the water stretched away from us in swirling rivulets, reflecting in each other and cutting a silvery moving hourglass shape into the sharp black pattern that the land made on both sides of the river, stretching together in the distance. While we walked home, Malcolm told me his plan to replace war with a giant nerf gun competition. If you’re hit by a nerf dart, you have to sit down and let the others keep playing. This way all of the conflicts of the world would be solved, and nobody would be hurt. He’s heard a lot about guns, lately. We all have. we’ve all been thinking about it a lot, or trying not to think about it. Prepare yourself to hear something very shocking, because, here at The Ordinary, we are ready to come out very strongly in favor of gun control! I know! It’s hard to believe that the proprietoress of a vegetarian food blog would take such a stand! This is one of those issues that makes me feel slightly crazy, because I don’t understand how it can be an issue at all. In the same way that I don’t understand why we sill fight wars, I don’t understand why guns are even an option. Honestly, I have two little boys, I’m aware of the fascination that guns hold for them. If you take their toy guns away, they’ll use sticks as guns, if you take the sticks away, they’ll use their fingers. So they have nerf guns and water guns, and I do see why these are fun – it adds a moving target to a game of tag. But nerf guns and water guns don’t hurt anybody, and that is, really, the only purpose of a real gun – to hurt or to kill. (I suppose you could use a gun to smash garlic, but how practical would that be?) And you can go ahead and blame movies and video games that glorify guns as well, because, guess what?! I’m not a huge fan of those, either. If we didn’t have guns we wouldn’t have to criticize video games for making them look appealing. I realize that I can’t add much to the conversation on gun control that hasn’t already been said, but I’d love to move it to the left, to reframe it, so that when we meet at the middle, the middle doesn’t seem like the frightening place that it is now. I’ve seen lots of so-called “gun nuts” spouting lots of, what’s the word? shall-we-say, vociferously-argued arguments. Well, I’d like to be an anti-gun nut. I’d like to say that merely wanting a gun should qualify you as too crazy to own one. I’d like to say that when the “rational” rationale for owning a gun is that you want to kill animals with it – that’s not rational at all, it’s horrible and depressing and should also qualify you as too crazy to own a gun. I’d like to say that no stubborn, paranoid misreading of our constitution or any other document makes a good argument for carrying guns. Surely the whole point of the constitution was to establish a government based on intelligent understanding and measured reasoning, with enough checks and balances that an armed revolution would never be necessary, as long as people behaved decently and rationally. If you want a gun just because somebody might take it away from you, you’re crazy, you can’t have one. If you want a gun because you don’t understand how government works, and that makes you nervous, you’re crazy and you can’t have one. If you want a gun because it makes you feel powerful, you’re crazy and you can’t have one. I want to turn the whole conversation upside down, starting from a place where people are generous and gentle and kind and expected to behave that way. Where the mistrust that makes people cling to their guns is directed at the gun companies who try to keep them in fear and ignorance for their own profit, so that not buying a gun is an act of rebellion and independence. I’d like to live in a world where we don’t need to talk about gun control, because nobody wants a gun, because they love all people and animals too much – because they understand the value of life. I’d like to believe that this is possible, that this is what most people want.

butternut-chouxAnd I’d like to live in a world where the most fun toy is not a gun but a pastry tube set. Holy smoke, I got my first set yesterday, and I’m so excited! It’s so much fun, so seussically nonsensical, so full of possibilities. And yet practical as well, because you get to eat whatever you make! These little butternut choux nests are among my favorite meals that I’ve made in some time. I used a fairly basic choux recipe, and added some roasted garlic and roasted butternut squash puree and some fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, smoked paprika and nutmeg. Then I piped this dough into lovely nests, about 4 inches across, and before I baked them I piled in some baby spinach, toasted pecans and smoked gouda. They turned out puffed and crispy on the outside, nice with the crunchy pecans. And soft and flavorful and comforting inside. Even the boys liked them! If you don’t have a pastry tube, you can easily make these by dropping little mounds of dough and pushing the center down with your hands or a spoon. It won’t be as pretty, but it will still taste as good.

Here’s When the Gun Draws by Pharoahe Monch It’s sweary, but he’s angry.

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Railway buns

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Railway buns

Railway buns

We’re declaring January “Mrs Beeton month,” here at The Ordinary. We’ve been poring over her Everyday Cookery (and, incidentally, pouring over it as well! Clio and I conspired to spill a whole glass of juice over the brittle pages!) We’re particularly immersed in the cakes, buns, biscuits and pastries sections – just the thing to get us through the dreary, damp, chilly, grey, drizzly, delightful winter days. There’s a comforting consistency to the recipes…page after page of nearly the exact same ingredients in nearly the exact same proportions. Flour, fat, leavening, a bit of sugar, milk, maybe an egg. Baked, steamed, dropped, girdled, glazed. And since it says “every day” cookery, we’ve been dutifully trying something new, every single day. When I saw a recipe for “railway buns,” I fell in love right away. Railway buns! What a beautiful thought. In a rare editorial comment, Mrs Beeton tells us that “These make good sandwiches for a journey.” Of course they do! Some little bit of warmth and comfort in your pocket as you set out for your adventures!!

So your Sunday collaborative playlist is on the subject of being on a journey. Not traveling songs, exactly, but songs about that moment that you realize that you’re far from home. Maybe you’re on a train or at a station or in a motel room, in between places, and it hits you like a ton of bricks just how many miles from your home you are. How strange and different everything feels. You miss home, and can’t remember why you came out here in the first place. Are you going back, or are you traveling on? Or do you sit on a bench and take a railway bun out of your pocket to take a minute and think the situation over.

railway-biscuitsI must admit that I mis-translated this recipe, but they turned out delicious anyway. I added about half the flour that I was supposed to. So that when Mrs. Beeton said I should roll out the dough and cut it into squares, I cried, “Mrs. Beeton, you’ve steered me wrong – I can’t roll out something this soft!!” Well, it turns out it was my mistake, but it worked out well. I dropped the batter onto a baking sheet, which is my preferred lazy way to go anyway. The buns were probably a little flatter than they were meant to be, but so so good. Everybody loved them. They’re quite similar to (American) biscuits, so I made them again with baking soda and baking powder instead of yeast, just as an experiment, and they turned out tasty. Softer and richer than your average biscuit, and just the thing fresh out of the oven for yet another chilly January day. And I think they, too, would make nice sandwiches for a journey.

Here’s our far from home playlist. As ever, I’ve made it collaborative so feel free to add any song you like. It’s shaping up to be a wonderful playlist for a drizzly Sunday, hunkered down with some railway biscuits in a nest of blankets!!
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Roasted chickpeas and cauliflower with kale, raisins and almonds, and manchego cheese

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Roasted cauliflower and chickpeas

Roasted cauliflower and chickpeas

Welcome to The Ordinary: Extreme sports zone! As you no doubt know, we have an extensive sporting complex, here at The Ordinary: from the pristine olympic-sized pool on the roof, to the climate-controlled underground basketball court, to the miles and miles of jogging track that wend their way through our orchards and vineyards. In all honesty, we’re not that sporty. I like playing tag, from time to time. And I like shooting baskets with the boys, although my prowess has earned me the nickname “misses Adas.” I don’t like professional sports at all – at least in America – and find them bloated, cynical and joyless. But the boys are both playing basketball, and this I love!! Malcolm is at such an age that the sport is starting to be taken very seriously, and some of the parents are depressingly aggressive in their court-side advice. Malcolm seems happily oblivious to all this. Strangely, my son – my son – doesn’t have a lot of competitive instinct. He likes running back and forth on the court, but he doesn’t feel particularly happy about beating friends on the other teams. And Isaac is playing, too, for the first time, and I can’t tell you how beautiful it is to watch a bunch of seven-year-olds play basketball! Isaac-basketballThey don’t understand the rules, they don’t keep score, they can’t keep track of all of the things they’re supposed to do at once. Either they don’t dribble at all, or they dribble with painstaking care, watching the ball as it rises and falls with such rapt attention that everything else fades into a colorful blur. They’re easily distracted, practicing dance moves or pulling up knee pads as the ball rockets towards them. Nobody knows who they’re passing to, least of all themselves, until the ball is lobbed through the air in no particular direction. And they hop around like popcorn, so excited and happy, bopping and dancing, dribbling themselves up and down rather than the ball. And then a coach will yell “hands in the air,” and all of them will throw their hands in the air as in joyous celebration! It’s a beautiful thing, I tell you! It’s a mother-flipping life lesson for us all!

roasted-cauliflower-and-chiI started this meal before we left for the epic hour-long basketball game, and I put it all together when I got back. So it’s a good meal for when you’re distracted, it doesn’t take long to make, and it keeps well, either together or in its separate elements. You roast the chickpeas, cauliflower, shallot, garlic and herbs all together, and if they sit in a warm oven, they only become better. You boil the kale on top of the stove, and then you add the raisins, almonds and cheese at the end, with a squeeze of lemon. If you don’t have manchego, not to fear! Any cheese you like would work here, or no cheese at all! Similarly, if you don’t have kale you could substitute chard, spinach, or collards. The boys mixed this with basmati rice to make a sort of pilaf, and David and I ate it atop lightly dressed lettuce and arugula to make a sort of warm salad. Good either way!!

Here’s Jurassic 5 with The Game.

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Warm salad with roasted mushrooms and tiny roasted potatoes and tarragon-white wine dressing

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salad-isaacIsn’t it funny how big events seem to go so quickly in other people’s lives? They fly by in bright fleeting flashes of significant moments. You hear somebody is pregnant, and next you know they have a baby. None of the seemingly endless slow growth and change, the day-in-and-day-out joy and discomfort and bewilderment. To hear about somebody else’s trip abroad is planning, postcards, and stories when they get home; they’re back before you knew they were gone. They talk of going to college, you blink, and they have a degree and a job.

I suppose our memories of our own lives are like this as well. You never remember the hard work and the tedium, the work to raise each day above the tedious. You don’t remember the hours of sitting and waiting, between events, soaked in anticipation or recollection. When my boys were little I was sure I would remember every single moment, every gurgle and wave of the chubby little fist. Of course I don’t! They’re all mixed together in a sleep-deprived slurry of good intentions. I mostly remember the moments we photographed, which is why we take photographs, after all.

I love this quote about Rupert Brooke, “He was magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life.” Not me! I’m ready! This is one test I’m completely prepared for! I love the littleness of each day, the petty pace of each tomorrow! Because, honestly, that pace is picking up, it’s not creeping any more, it’s flying, and I’m limping after it, trying to catch up. I want something big to work towards, of course, but thank god for the small things to look forward to each day. The cup of coffee, the making of a meal, the eating of a meal, reading with the boys, Malcolm’s happy walk, Clio’s sweet grabby paws, David putting his arm around me in the middle of the night, Isaac’s lovely silly songs, walks to school and home again, Clio leaping at us with frantic kisses every single time we walk in the door, inevitable spring, day after day, season after season, year after year.

I used to wish time away a lot when I was younger. I was so eager to get on to the next thing, and I’d wish away large chunks of days and weeks. I was thinking the other day that I don’t do that any more; there aren’t enough hours in the day for all of the foolish little things I want to get done. Where am I going with this? I don’t know!! Another incoherent ramble brought to your by your friends at The Ordinary. It’s a drizzly day, is all, and it’s January, and that’s the kind of mood I’m in!

mushroom-potato-saladWe’ve decided to eat mostly vegetables for a few weeks. I mean, we always eat mostly vegetables, because we’re vegetarians, but we’ve decided not to combine them with pastry and, you know, all that stuff, but to make them the stars of the show. So… soups and stews and warm salads like this one. This was delicious! So tasty that I couldn’t save any to photograph prettily the next day. It involves a bed of baby spinach and arugula topped with tiny roasted potatoes, crispy roasted mushrooms, crunchy walnuts, smoky smoked gouda, and a dressing of tarragon, shallots, garlic and white wine. Crunchy, soft, warm, cool, Yum!

Here’s Everyday by Yo La Tengo.
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French cake a week – Gateau de pommes “A la Danoise” (and simple spice cookies)

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french-apple-cakeIn which Claire, who doesn’t speak French, bakes her way through the cake section of a French cookbook from 1962.Yesterday we shared some poems and passages about windows. “But Claire,” I heard you saying, “You know what else is beautiful? Photographs of windows, and film scenes that involve windows!” “Of course!” I reply enthusiastically. “Two things I have long loved!!” It’s true, I do love photographs of windows. I find them so inviting and mysterious, so suggestive of the story of a person’s life, and yet a little melancholy and lonely at the same time. I’ve mentioned Eugene Atget before, in these virtual pages. Many of his photographs involve windows – store windows and tenement windows – windows with the ghost of a person in them, a whirl of light that represents movement, a row of grinning dummies. atget2012_cour41ruebroca_1912-webOr simply an emptiness or a shadow, a hollow that holds the secret movements of the people who live there. Jean Renoir, Atget’s compatriot, adds movement and depth to images of Parisian windows to create a poetry of light and shadow, a shifting frame within-a-frame that allows him to play with interior and exterior space. Renoir is famous for employing a large depth of field, so that objects in the background and middle ground are just as sharply focussed as those in the foreground, and frequently he’ll use a window to frame the action, so that two stories occur at once in the shot, distinct but related. In Grand Illusion, the soldiers’ exercises in the background create a source of mounting tension in contrast to the genial conversation inside of the window, and when the camera pulls back at the end of the scene, so that we’re outside the window looking in, it casts the men as characters in the story about to unfold. In Boudu Saved from Drowning, the parlor drama on the inside is contrasted (in a gorgeous tracking shot) with the world of the parisian streets outside the window, as observed through a telescope. And this passage from Le Crime de Monsieur Lange is beautifully busy with activity in and out of windows, dividing people even as it connects them, in a drama that illustrates the power of people working together. The murder scene, seen from across a street, entirely through windows and doorways, sets the frames of windows almost as the individual frames of the film itself, in a masterpiece of life and light and shadow – a sort of love letter to the pure joy of watching a story unfold. Beautiful.

Spice cookies

Spice cookies

French cakes seem to often involve crushed cookies and cream. You really can’t go wrong with crushed cookies and cream! This particular cake combines layers of a thick apple compote with layers of cookie crumbs and butter. I misread the recipe, or, I suppose, I mistranslated it. It said “biscottes,” but I read “biscuits.” A small amount of lazy research suggests that “biscottes” are actually melba toast. BUt it was too late! I’d already made some spice cookies to crumble for crumbs. And I think it was a happy mistake, because the spice cookies are perfect with the apples!! You could probably use digestives or graham crackers with equally pleasant results. These cookies are worth making just to eat, though, because they’re very tasty, and you only use 9 or 10 in the recipe. My finished cake wasn’t the prettiest, because I don’t have a means to pipe the cream in attractive patterns, but it tastes absolutely delicious, so who cares how it looks?apple-cake-french

Here’s Listz’s Totentanz from Rules of the Game.
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Fennel, walnut and ricotta paté

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pate-smoked-gouda-toast“Now, on a Sunday morning, most of the windows were occupied, men in their shirtsleeves leant out smoking, or carefully and gently held small children on the sills. Other windows were piled up with bedding, above which the dishevelled head of a woman would briefly appear. People called out to each other across the street, one of the calls provoked a loud laugh about K. himself.” I read The Trial by Franz Kafka in high school. Now, decades later, I will admit to being a little fuzzy on the plot and themes, and whatever else we probably wrote our paper on. But for some reason this image, of a man leaning out the window in his shirtsleeves on a Sunday morning glows in my memory and my imagination. I could feel the air, morning-cool, but warming every moment. I could see the man’s shirt, it was white, with thin blue stripes, soft and light. I could even feel K.’s awkwardness, his sense that he wasn’t part of this busy world of people starting their day. I like to read about people at windows, and I don’t know why! But I’ve collected a few samples, for your delectation, and I expect a 5000 word essay on my desk tomorrow, explaining the significance of the window in each example vis-a-vis the tropes of subtexts signifying the microcosm of the other in the substantiality of the now. Or you could share some memorable quotes describing people leaning out of windows that have stuck in your mind half your life. Or you could say, “you’re crazy, man, nobody collects literary passages about windows. I’m out.” The choice is yours! Ready? Begin!

    Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
    And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
    Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?

(T.S. Eliot, of course! The lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock)

    It was to remember the streets of Harlem, the boys on the stoops, the girls behind the stairs and on the roofs, the white policeman who had taught him how to hate, the stickball games in the streets, the women leaning out of windows and the numbers they played daily, hoping for the hit his father never made.

(James Baldwin, Another Country, which has people leaning out of windows all over Manhattan and the South of France)

    ..while at times I feel that to be able to cross the Rue Saint-Hilaire again, to engage a room in the Rue de l’Oiseau, in the old hostelry of the Oiseau Flesché, from whose windows in the pavement used to rise a smell of cooking which rises still in my mind, now and then, in the same warm gusts of comfort, would be to secure a contact with the unseen world more marvellously supernatural than it would be to make Golo’s acquaintance and to chat with Geneviève de Brabant.

(That would be Proust)

    Young Woman At A Window

    She sits with
    tears on
    her cheek
    her cheek on
    her hand
    the child
    in her lap
    his nose
    pressed
    to the glass

(And our William Carlos Williams)

Fennel & walnut paté

Fennel & walnut paté

I wasn’t really sure where I was going when I made this pate, but I like where I ended up. This was delicious on small whole grain toasts, with a few sprigs of arugula and a thin slices of smoked gouda. It’s made by braising fennel and garlic in white wine with a bit of rosemary, and then pureeing this mixture with walnuts and ricotta, adding an egg, and baking until set but soft. It made a nice side dish warm, the first night I made it, but it was better the next day, at room temperature on toast.fennel-ricotta-pate

Here’s Woody Guthrie with Do You Ever Think of Me (“At my window, sad and lonely, often do I think of thee…”)

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Summer-in-winter tomato arugula soup

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tomato-arugula-soupHere at The Ordinary, we have an institute devoted entirely to the study of winter light. Though time is flying and the days are short, the season can feel very long. It is easy to succumb to feelings of sleepiness or downright discouragement, this time of year. But in our extensive field research, we have discovered a certain light that feels hopeful. We have, of course, taken samples, and we have them percolating in our underground laboratories, where they bubble and glow in test tubes and petri dishes, illuminating the gloom. We feel that we are approaching a breakthrough in our studies that will allow us to declare that this hopeful light is instrumental in helping us all make it through the winter months. You can keep your “golden hour,” and your “tropical sunsets” and your showy, “aurora borealis,” we’ve got a few minutes of clarity in a murky season, and we’ll take it, dammit! This light can occur at different intervals throughout the day, late in the morning, when the sun finally breaks through the dull grey blanket of clouds and washes the world with light. It might show up in early afternoon and lure you out of your house, cheering you with a brief moment of something very close to warmth. In late afternoon it’s the most fleeting, raising your spirits almost as they fall and follow the sun into dusky pink shadows. The light is cold and clear and slanting, like pale white gold, and you almost feel that if you watch it long enough you’ll see it grow warmer and stronger. It’s a memory and a promise. Attempts to bottle this light for use as a restorative tonic have proven fruitless, so you’ll have to take it as it comes, and rejoice in the fact that it comes more often, and longer, as the days creep by.

This soup is also like a memory. It’s got the flavors of summer – tomatoes and herbs and arugula, juicy, piquant, and warm. It will remind you of ripe rich tomatoes with basil and mozzarella, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic, that you ate every single day in August. But it’s made with wintery supplies such as you might amass if you were snowed in, living in a cabin on the edge of a mountain – a good can of diced tomatoes, some dried herbs, baby arugula from a bag, some frozen green peas. I made it with a mix of fresh and dried herbs…I had some fresh tarragon and rosemary, and I cut back the sad thyme plant in my garden and used the last of those fresh leaves, but I used dried oregano and sage. You can use any herbs you like or have growing in your windows. The soup is light and pleasant, and if you top it with a bit of grated mozzarella, it’s comforting and filling, as well.

Tomato arugula soup

Tomato arugula soup

Here’s A Summer Wasting from Belle and Sebastian

Summer in winter,
Winter in springtime,
You heard the birds sing:
Everything will be fine.

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Kale and black beans in curried pumpkin sauce with pumpkinseed-arugula pesto

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Kale, black bean and pumpkin stew

Kale, black bean and pumpkin stew

This meal reminds me of something I used to make back in my bachelorette days. Can of pumpkin purée, can of chickpeas, loads of broccoli. It was quick, easy, cheap and not very fattening at all. I

n those days, I used to walk around the city I lived in. I’d walk for hours, every day, no matter the weather, lost in thought. And as I walked I repeated the mantra, “mad as a hatter, thin as a dime, mad as a hatter, thin as a dime.”

This time of year, we always read a lot about diet tips and trends. I always want to yell out about my story, calling out like the over-eager kid in class. It’s not much of a story, really. At one point in my life I was really skinny, and I wasted a lot of time and energy thinking about getting skinnier. I wasted a lot of energy depriving myself of energy, really. I was obsessed with numbers on a scale, I felt good at losing weight – it was a skill I’d conquered, and one it was difficult to stop once I’d started. I felt as though I’d conquered hunger, as well. The longer you ignore it, the less frequently you feel it. For me it wasn’t about looking like Kate Moss, who hadn’t been invented yet, it was about a million other things. About being the most thin; about becoming less human, more ethereal, less heavy on the earth; about getting away with something; about worrying people; about scaring myself.

And the reason any of this is worth mentioning is that I’m not like that any more. I know that millions of women are, and some men, too, and I’d like to say that it’s possible to regain balance and perspective, to feel good about yourself. And, actually, to stop thinking about yourself so much, so that you’re free to think about other things. It helps to have help, of course, from parents and boyfriends and friends. But mostly you find the balance yourself, gradually, over days and weeks and years. You learn that the better you feel about yourself, the better you feel about yourself, and that being healthy feels better than being thin and having ulcers and stomach aches, and having your hands and feet turn blue when it’s cold, and getting dizzy if you walk too far. You learn that it feels good to be strong. You’ll allow yourself to take up some space on the earth. You learn that you can loosen the vice-like grip of your control on everything you eat and how often you exercise without really changing yourself all that much. You’ll learn that all of the control in the world can’t save you from things over which you will never have control – your body will change over time, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

But you’ll realize that we’re all in it together, all heading in the same direction, and pulled by the same gravity. (And then, maybe, you’ll have a couple of kids and your whole world will turn upside down forever!) You’ll learn about the pleasure of eating with other people, and eating like other people do. You’ll find a place that you’re comfortable with yourself, and you’ll see that everything goes in cycles – you’ll gain weight, you’ll lose weight, everything will even out. You’ll throw out your scales. You’ll develop some rules to live by, probably unconsciously, that will help you to maintain your balance through thick and thin. You’ll mostly stop comparing yourself to other people, because you’ll realize that everybody is built differently. You’ll stop comparing yourself to yourself years ago, because everybody changes. You’ll know that you”re ok, and most of the time you will feel ok. You won’t worry constantly about your food and your body: you’ll take pleasure in them. That’s what I want to say when I see all of these advice columns, on websites, and on the covers of magazines at the grocery store, and on the news – all trying to sell themselves by making you feel bad about yourself so that they can tell you how to feel good about yourself.

And, of course, you’ll keep making meals like this, because they’re cheap and tasty, and full of vitamins, and yes, just a bit because they’re not very fattening at all. Kale and beans and pumpkin!! Can you think of all the vitamins and protein in this one meal! I was hoping my boys would like it, and they did like the sauce and the beans, but the kale was a little bitter for them. I bought a bag of baby kale, and because it was so young, I didn’t boil it first, but it was a bit bitter, so next time I’d parboil it just for a few minutes. I’ve been thinking for a while about combining pumpkin flesh and pumpkinseeds in a meal! It just makes sense that they’d go together, and they do! The flesh is sweet and warm, and the seeds are smoky and cool, and they’re just perfect together.

Here’s Tom Waits Diamonds and Gold.

There’s a hole in the ladder
A fence we can climb
Mad as a hatter
You’re thin as a dime
Go out to the meadow
The hills are agreen
Sing me a rainbow
Steal me a dream

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Mocha mousse cake

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Mocha mousse cake

Mocha mousse cake

I was sewing some felt owls the other month, as one does. The seams flying through the machine, somewhat sloppy and uneven, brought to mind a phrase my mother uses. “Loving hands at home.” The phrase, taken as a whole, is an adjective, and it describes work that is not technically perfect, but that is made with love. It’s such a nice expression, particularly if used by a mother, because a mother’s hands can be so magically comforting. When my boys were little I could soothe an achy belly with a tummy rub, and Malcolm still asks me to put cool hands on his forehead when he’s feverish. The exact shape and size of your mother’s hand seems to be imprinted in the memory of your own hand. My mother’s hands are calloused from cello-playing, but they’re always very soft and warm. I have a vivid memory of a train ride to Washington DC. I must have been in middle school. It was just after Christmas, and the train was very cold, but we all sat close together in the cramped compartment two facing seats make. My mother’s hand rested on my knee for some time, and the warmth of it felt good. When she took her hand away, it was as if the whole train became a little colder – not just the place where her hand had been, but every place.

I’m grateful to have grown up in a home that celebrated a loving-hands-at-home aesthetic. If the expression is taken not as an absolution of mediocrity or a justification for lackluster effort, but as an appreciation of the imperfections that make something unique, it becomes very freeing. I find that I’m raising my own boys this way. We color outside the lines. Sometimes, we don’t even make lines first! We find more beauty in lack of symmetry, in less-than-clean lines. An irregularity in fabric or wood is not a flaw but an opportunity to make something distinctly lovely. By hand, with affection for the work and the object that it produces, like true amateurs. I believe this is what they now call “artisanal.”

What’s this? A chocolate cake recipe in January! Nobody wants to see that! We all want light and healthy, dammit. Well, I’m a rebel, so here it is: four layers of dense, dark chocolatey, cinnamony cake with 3 layers of light mocha-cinnamon mousse, with the whole being topped by melted bittersweet chocolate. Actually, I made this cake for my mom’s birthday back in November, but what with one thing and another, I haven’t gotten around to telling you about it yet. My mom likes not-too-sweet things, she likes dark chocolate, and she used to eat these candies called “coffee nips,” which came in a yellow and brown box. I combined these ideas to make this cake, which is dark and rich, but not too sweet. She said it was the best birthday cake she’d ever had!! Of course, it might have been a cake that only a mother could love.

Here’s Peter Tosh with Equal Rights, because my mother likes it a lot. And so do I.

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