Easter 2022

Here's this year's edition of my annual Easter post...

...freshly completed tarrale...

...a piping-hot pizza chiena...

...a bouquet of tulips from my visit to the first farmers' market of the year on Saturday morning...

...all culminating in this morning's Easter breakfast spread.

I also discovered from a friend's post that this weekend is a rare confluence of spring festivals in a number of different cultures and traditions. So I'm sending good wishes to everyone celebrating Easter, Passover, Ramadan, and Vaisakhi this weekend - and a weekend of peace, goodwill, and abundance to everyone. 

Circuit 53

This past week was pretty packed with meetings and deadlines, and so I didn’t have the time or the brain space to cook anything new or different. I only made one thing that I wouldn’t usually make in the middle of the week, and it is very old. (And it’s not the only one.) 

I’ve been making my own birthday cakes for more than 20 years now, since I first moved away from Boston. Before that, my mother made them, and the combination of yellow cake (or gold cake, as she called it), and chocolate frosting was the one I chose most often. It still is. I’ve had the occasional celebration cake or dessert produced or procured by someone else, but all I ever really want when my birthday rolls around is one of my mother’s cakes. Making it myself is as close as I can get. 

My personal new year starts a little bit later than everyone else’s. I haven’t set any major resolutions, intentions, or goals this year, as I have tended to do in the past. I’m just hoping that the good outweighs the bad in 2022, for all of us.

Exeunt 2021

...pursued by a bear? Actually a straightforward bear might make a welcome change from much of the fun-house tour, conducted at dizzying speed, that has characterized this year. I keep saying to people that it felt as though 2020 went on for about five years, and that 2021 has been more like five weeks. And now here it is December again, and time to crank up the holiday-cookie production line. (I'm still hoping that people will want homemade cookies this year; I scaled back considerably on numbers last year in recognition of the whole socially-distanced holiday vibe, so I guess we'll have to see how things go over the next couple of weeks.)

As I live in hope, I've started browsing my photo archive for the year to jog my memory of highlights, baking and otherwise. These Chocolate Sugar Cookies are easily my favorite recipe from Sarah Kieffer's 100 Cookies, and were well received both at home and in care packages sent across a wide swath of the continental US. Any cookie is a Christmas cookie if you make it at Christmastime, right?  

Day 256

Photo credit to a sister who was there - I was only a virtual participant!

It’s the day before Thanksgiving here in the US. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not hosting anyone, I’m not doing any of the things that would normally preoccupy me on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. But I’m so ready to take a break from the daily grind.

This past Sunday was Pie Day - a family tradition that has endured for decades and which I can’t believe I’ve never written about here before. At its peak of production, my parents, sisters, and I gathered on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to crank out more than two dozen apple pies for our large extended family and to serve on the day - homemade crust made in a washtub by my mother, apples by the bushel peeled and sliced mostly by my father. The tradition itself starts with my mother and her own mother, somewhere around 65 years ago, before any of my generation came along, tackling an American custom and making it their own. 

Last year I spent Pie Day in Boston with my siblings and niblings for the first time in probably 20 years. This year, of course, everything looks different, but we adapted. Most of my Boston sisters gathered in sister S’s backyard to assemble pies in the frosty air, while those of us who were remote zoomed in from possible-exposure self-quarantine (no symptoms so far), Chicago, and metro DC (yours truly). We produced a total of 10 pies across our various locations - all apple, as usual (we’re not pumpkin pie people). 

My pie specs, for anyone who’s interested: a double batch of this amazing pie crust and a dozen Granny Smith apples tossed with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and sprinkled with lemon juice.

And so, come what may (and please let 2020 not have anything left in its arsenal), the holiday season begins. 

Day 30

This weekend marks completing our fourth week of quarantine. It continues to feel almost normal to me, interspersed with moments that feel very strange or unreal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about meticulous mindfulness, which I wrote about a lot about four years ago. DP and I have both joked that we already knew how to do social isolation, because we were doing it before it was trendy. Like many jokes, this one holds a painful truth. A significant chunk of our time in Australia was marked by experiences of profound isolation for all of us. And well before that was the watershed experience of Miss B’s premature birth and long hospitalization, the crucible in which our family unit was formed. 

In those situations, our only real recourse was to focus on each other, and on the next task at hand. When looking outward or forward brought only pain and anxiety, we found it best to focus inward, on routines and rituals that brought a sense of security and comfort. Friday movie night. Sunday breakfast. Summer vacation at the beach. They’ve adjusted to fit our circumstances as we’ve moved from place to place, but they’ve provided a sense of security and continuity when everything else felt uncertain and unpredictable. These are the essence of what meticulous mindfulness has become for me.

Our established schedules have provided some much-needed structure over the past month, as DP and Miss B have adjusted to home-based life, and I’ve adjusted to having other people here all the time. We’ve made some adjustments to our shared schedules as well: DP and I have started taking a walk together most afternoons. We all forage together in the fridge for lunch, and if there’s time afterwards, we might fit in a game of dominoes. And Miss B is getting more involved in dinner prep and baking. 

Food highlights this week were a combination of new and old. To help keep me from getting stale in the kitchen, I’ve re-introduced Wild Card Wednesdays, where I get free rein to make whatever I want for dinner and my two picky eaters have to at least try it before resorting to cheese and crackers or other backup sustenance. This week I tried my hand at falafel, using a Dinner with Julie recipe involving canned chickpeas and other pantry staples. Served with homemade pita bread and Greek salad, I’m happy to report that they were a hit.

And over the last two days, honoring a family tradition that’s older than all of us put together, Miss B and I made taralli and pizza chiena, in preparation for Easter. We won’t be able to host or join any celebrations this year, so we’re going to play Easter bunny and make some deliveries around our neighborhood and beyond. And I’ll feel grateful for the fact that, even in the current circumstances, I feel fortunate to be where I am, and far less isolated than I have been in other times and places.

I wish you all a peaceful, safe, and healthy weekend, however you’re spending it.

Status update

New kitchen installation, Day 1.

Short version: our transition is ongoing.

Slightly longer version: we've been camped out in northern Virginia in a friend's basement for 5 weeks; tomorrow we shift to a short-stay apartment closer to our new house/construction site. We have now officially entered the intensive phase of renovation, and our household goods are expected to arrive in port from Australia shortly. Summer vacation 2.0 is entering its final phase for Miss B, with just over 2 weeks until school starts. DP is enjoying settling into his new job, and my working life has entered an interesting phase, of which more later - right now I'm mainly focused on juggling between work and contractor responsibilities, interspersed with occasional interactions with spouse and child.

My mantra of the moment: "It'll all get done somehow." And I'm not complaining - I knew what August would be like when I signed up for this.

One of the main reasons that makes it all worth it: being able to join my family's Cape vacation for the first time in ten years:

S'mores

Desserts: my mum's chocolate cake, with vanilla buttercream frosting (top);
Food52 Shortcut Pie with a gluten-free cookie crust filled with roasted peaches and raspberries (bottom)

Highlights included s'mores on the back patio and a mass birthday party for all the summer birthdays in my family (about half of the 15 people in attendance - I contributed the desserts). Other highlights, not pictured: the cousins' sleeping loft; Mexican train dominoes; loafing in rocking chairs on the porch; unscheduled time with a lot of people I've been missing for a long time.

Autumn shenanigans

One day I will post an update that is not a round-up of pictures since the last time I posted; but today is not that day. So here's what's been happening around here lately:

Travel

To Melbourne for a friend's 60th birthday party, where we helped make drinks and lunch for 40, then sat on the lawn (till it started raining) to drink Pimm's and champagne and east roast beef and salads...

...to Hobart with my best friend from Boston, who came to Australia for the first time to attend a conference, then stayed on for a week to goof off with me. We wandered Salamanca Market, visited the Cascades Brewery, did lots of walking and talking and had lots of good food and drink (including these tiny pancakes doused with raspberry sauce from a market stall) - a fabulous weekend.

And an impromptu weekend to my always-favorite destination - the beach - to kick off the April school holiday.

A headline from our travels - no comment.

Crafting

I finished a craft project! One that's been on my list for a loooong time - I made a doona cover (that's 'duvet' in Australian) for Miss B's bed, using some inherited bed linen and handstitched seams with yarn from my embroidery stash.

Inspired by my success, I have also finally identified and organized a place for my sewing machine, after 3+ years of it languishing in a box.

Easter

The usual four-day extravaganza of cooking and eating, plus this year's experiment, at Miss B's request - hot cross buns, modified to her specifications (chocolate chips instead of fruit, buttercream icing crosses on top).

And here's the obligatory photo of the brunch spread - on our new kitchen table, which DP and I assembled together without filing for divorce afterwards!

Also I thought you'd like to see the mixed-message Easter spread on display at my gym to kick off the holiday weekend.


 Autumn

The leaves are changing color in Canberra - I love that I get to have my favorite season here, even if I'm forever disoriented by having it happen in April.

So I even did a little flower arranging to bring the autumn colors indoors.

Back outdoors - Miss B and I took part in our local March for Science last weekend....

...and this weekend a friend gave me a bag full of limes from her overloaded trees. What to do with them? Lime curd? Lime meringue pie? A giant pitcher of margaritas? Ideas welcome!

Hope all is well in your worlds, and that I'll have another, shorter update soon!
 

Ten things

The waiting continues...and I've been working hard at practicing meticulous mindfulness. It's been going pretty well, aside from a couple of weeks where the US election combined with solo parenting to send me into an anxiety tailspin. (The election was one of the things I was waiting for, and to say I was not happy with the outcome would be an understatement on the order of describing Australia as a place with one or two possibly harmful critters.)

But. Life marches on, and I must focus on the things I can do even in the midst of feeling helpless and at the mercy of events over which I have no control. So in that spirit, here's an update of recent-ish happenings.

Going back to early September - a tiny birthday cake for a visiting colleague of DP's who has become a family friend. He made the long trek to Australia for the second year running to guest lecture in DP's program, and I found out that his first full day in town was his 66th birthday. So we surprised him when he came over for dinner.

In late September, we went to the US for our planned family visit; for me it was five cities in just under three weeks. One of the highlights of my trip (and my year) was a long-planned sisters' weekend in New York, with all of us together on our own on a trip for the first time in a very long time. It was a memorable and spectacular trip, in part because of visiting places like The Frick Collection.

Our final city in the US was a 36-hour stopover in Dallas to visit our good friends who live there. We really enjoyed visiting the Dallas Arboretum's Pumpkin Village - a clever and creative use of winter squash, and I couldn't stop giggling most of the time for thinking about this. (Warning: NSFW language!)

Then back to Canberra, swapping autumn color for spring in bloom and harvesting lemons and rosemary from the garden.

Two weeks after we got back from the US, I was off again - this time to Seoul for my organization's annual meeting. It was a productive and positive week overall, but it makes me a little sad that this is pretty much the only picture I managed to take outside of the conference (it's a little mall made up entirely of small shops run by local craftswomen and -men).

Back again for the tail end of October; settling in to nearly three months with no overseas trips scheduled, and starting to see some real signs of spring - encouraging enough that I have revived my cold brew coffee habit, making it in my French press and then storing in a repurposed Chianti bottle. (Classy, no?) My standard ratio for coffee (hot or cold) is 7g of coffee per 100ml of water; cold water for cold brew, and let it brew for at least a couple of hours. Chill in the fridge overnight, then serve over ice with a hefty splash of milk and a dollop of maple syrup to sweeten.

The end of October also means Halloween, and a sweet treat to celebrate it. This year I made ghost cakes for Miss B - basically a chocolate cupcake, topped with a gloopy pile of vanilla buttercream frosting and suitably decorated.

Moving into November and real spring weather - a good opportunity to host our first outdoor Sunday lunch of the season and invite a few friends over to share it with us.

And speaking of a few friends: this weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving in Australia, with a buffet turkey dinner for 60+ friends, colleagues, students and their families. An epic undertaking achieved with a lot of lists and a lot of help, and one to make me remember to be grateful for all the things I have.

Which today include the luxury of having to do not much of anything except eat pie, bask in the afterglow of yesterday, and figure out what the heck to do with all these leftovers.

Eight weeks (part 1)

That posting-more-often thing doesn't seem to be working out too well, so here comes another mammoth update - so much that it's going to be in 2 parts!

I've developed the habit of baking a loaf of bread on the weekend just to have some around - not because we've got company coming or any other special reason, but just for us. This is what happens when I leave it lying around.

I took some of my first batch of homemade oat cereal and used it as the filling for some homemade chocolates to bring as a hosts' gift. I thought of it as a variation on the Nestle Crunch-type candy bar, but discovered I like the crispy but hefty (and a little bit salty) oats even better.

This is a chicken recipe involving sauteed onions, chicken breasts, and deglazing the pan at the end with balsamic vinegar. I made it in March and I can't remember where I found the original recipe - it was good, though!

Miss B and I have been trying to make time for creative endeavors - we found these alphabet stamps at Miss B's favorite shop.

My first attempt at a salade Niçoise, with a twist - I roasted the potatoes and green beans instead of boiling them, as in the traditional recipe. An excellent dinner salad for those of you where the weather is warming up.

DP's program has students from about two dozen countries besides Australia, and every year they host an International Day festival. I went this year for the first time - here's a picture of, as you can see, the Anglo-American corner.

Continuing the salade Niçoise theme, I made a pan bagnat - a Provençal sandwich - as my contribution to a potluck cards evening with friends. Given the activity, I thought sandwiches were the appropriate food choice, but as it turns out you need two hands to eat this.

And then all of a sudden it was Easter! The usual suspects: tarrale...

...pizza chiena...

...the brunch spread...

...and this year's new addition: an Easter-egg-themed table runner that I made myself out of tea towels.

I liked it so much I moved it onto the kitchen table after Easter was over, and left it there to enjoy for another week or so, along with some leftover goodies.

Speaking of leftover goodies, that brings us to the end of Easter and the end of March. Next up is part 2: the April recap!