Patisserie Pijoh

I am behind with blogging, and still have the Pigott reunion in Saskatchewan to cover, but I'm going to break with sequence here just because we had such a fun day, and I wanted to share it.
A couple of weeks ago, Brian and I saw signs downtown for a book festival for September 7th and wondered whether we might go. My tendency is to be quite lumpish so that when it comes time to actually doing things that in theory sound wonderful to me, I become resistant. So last night, when we discussed whether or not we would check it out, I reluctantly mumbled "yeah maybe" and unenthusiastically opened the program of events on my computer. I had no intention of reading it in its entirety (and I never did do that) so I consider it an act of Divine Providence (really!) that my eye caught the name "Peter Reinhart" on the list of authors who would be presenting. Peter Reinhart has long been a hero of mine--before we even knew we were moving to North Carolina (which happens to be his state of residence). He is a genius baker--one of the foremost in the bread scene really--and much of what I've learned about bread making is from him. When I had a sourdough crisis, I emailed him and he responded right away with a very thorough and helpful guide on how to restore my culture. I've often thought I'd like to drive to Charlotte and attend one of his classes at Johnson & Wales University.
So, when I saw that he would be in Winston giving demos of recipes from his latest book, The Joy of Gluten Free Baking, I was both excited and intrigued. We got up bright and early this morning, and left with enough time to find parking and walk over to the tent where he was presenting.
In the hour that he had, he made (all gluten and sugar free) pecan bread, garlic crackers, and blueberry pancakes. Sampling the pecan bread was what made Brian raise his eyebrows and say "we should get that book."
Peter was a lot of fun to watch baking. For one, I learned a lot about technique just by watching him. For another, he was pretty funny: he forgot the eggs in the pecan bread (it was rescued from the oven and appropriately egged), and when it came time to make the crackers, he started by following his cracker recipe and then mistakenly referring to another recipe, realizing this only near the end. And he would just laugh about these things and add more ingredients to fix his creations, and continue on in his cheerful way.
When the presentation was done, we bought a book and had him sign it, and got to chat with him for a little bit.

It seemed that baking would be our theme for the day because later in the evening, Brian and I made a lemon meringue pie together for a birthday tomorrow. I'm still quite impressed at his engineering of the meringue given that I accidentally only used one third of the sugar I was supposed to use:

I had a lot of fun baking with him. I had to substitute limes for lemons, and based on the sample of filling we tried, it was a very good substitution. It got me wondering about orange meringue pies. Does anyone know if they've ever been done? Or if they're any good? I'd love to know!

Where the buffalo roam

With a few moments of internet time available, I thought I'd grab the chance to update the blog...especially since on our way through Moosejaw, cousin Katherine expressed a tiredness of looking at patriotic eggs. I don't blame her. I've gotten sloppy...I blame traveling.

Anyway, I am in love with Saskatchewan. I suppose that given my passion for breadmaking, it shouldn't surprise me that I have such an affinity for the "breadbasket of Canada." But contrary to my expectation that Saskatchewan would be one giant, level wheat field, the varied terrain of this landscape makes me fairly certain that my love for this place goes beyond the bread link.

I feel like there's tonnes I want to post about--especially regarding the Pigott family reunion--and in this small window of opportunity there isn't time for all that, so I thought I'd share some footage of our post-reunion visit to Grasslands National Park (which goes almost right to the US border it turns out--we were only 31 km away where we were). It was my first time to visit a national park that didn't have trees (although there were the odd bushes and shrubs here and there) which made it very striking. I felt as if I had stepped into the dawn of the third day of creation, when the face of the earth had little more than grass covering it, making the lines of its hills and valleys so apparent.
The goal of Grasslands is to return that area to its native condition, ages before Canada was ever settled. They're doing this by reintroducing indigenous plant and animal species.
I have long wanted to see a buffalo in the wild, but I had heard that buffalo sightings here were hit or miss, and knowing how shy they are, I knew we might not get to see them. But with prayer and patience, contenting ourselves first with these adorable (and endangered) prairie dogs...

Guess who showed up in dogtown?

A lone, outcast bison. Apparently after the females give birth, they kick the males out of the herd, so I'm guessing that was our friend's story. Seeing him in the wild as close up as I got to was nothing short of incredible. They are such majestic creatures. I'm ashamed to admit though, that I was also reminded of how much I love bison meat. Not that I wanted to make sausages out of this guy or anything...he looked sad enough about his recent breakup, and nobody wants depressed sausage.

Happy 1st and 4th!

I may have mentioned this before: holidays in the US generally seem to be a bigger deal than they are in Canada, and this has been really apparent to me in the Independence Day celebrations I've seen throughout my life.
I have an uncle in Chapel Hill (1.5 hours away) who likes to make sure that Brian and I have company for the holidays, so he has invited us down to spend the 4th of July with him and his family. He mentioned something about having a pool and fireworks, so I knew that my regular baked goods wouldn't do. I'd have to step up my festivity game a notch or two. Here was my solution:

Independence eggs! And of course, I had to make up a plate for my home and native land:

Making these was really easy. I hard boiled a dozen eggs, left them in the fridge overnight (this seemed to help with peeling a lot), peeled them in the morning, and sliced each one in half lengthwise. Then I scooped out the yolks into a separate bowl and washed off the egg whites.
To colour them, I got out two 2-cup measuring cups. In each one, I put 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 40-50 drops of food colouring, and filled them to the 2 cup mark with boiling water. I put the measuring cups in the sink in case adding the egg halves caused overflow (which it did).
I placed 8 halves in the blue cup, and 8 halves in the red cup, and left them for 30 minutes (sloshing around occasionally).
To the yolks, I added 1 tbsp mustard, 1 tsp horseradish, 6 tbsp mayo, 2 tsp lime juice, 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, and 2 green onions finely chopped. I pulsed the mixture in the food processor to get it smooth, and transferred it to a zip lock bag with a corner cut out of it in order to pipe it into the whites (and reds and blues).
The piping activity gave me a newfound respect and admiration for my mother, who used to professionally decorate cakes. Let's just say I won't be quitting my job (hahaha!) to decorate cakes any time soon.
And if you'll excuse me now, I'm off to scrounge around in my closet for clothes that are red, white, and blue.

CSA

In the absence of being able to farm one's own food, the idea of community supported agriculture has always held appeal for me. The way it works is that you subscribe with a farmer sometime in the winter for a set amount of money, and then throughout the growing season, you get weekly deliveries (or pickups) of produce from them. It's a great way to eat locally (and often organically) and to try items that you might not be predisposed to buy on your own. So why haven't I joined one yet? The main reason is that we often travel in the summer, which amounts to missing about a month's worth of deliveries. If it weren't for that, I'd probably get past my other hangups about CSAs and just join one--even if only for a year. Those other hangups are:
1) being a bit of a control freak about what I'm cooking; I like some predictability in meal planning
2) being afraid of not making good use of my deliveries (either because of the quantities, or just the weirdness, of the items in question)
3) worrying that I won't actually be getting items I find useful, and having to spend a lot more on produce outside of my CSA investment
But like I said, all of these concerns I would be willing to put to the test, if it weren't for the travel issue.
Now, a friend of mine who is a devout CSAer is doing some travelling this week, and asked if I'd like her produce for the week. So I got really offended and told her I wasn't waiting for people to feed me, and how dare she assume that I had nothing better to do than to go collect her unwanted veggies. Actually, that's not how that really went---I was thrilled. It was a good way for me to just dabble in the CSA culture ever so lightly. I tagged along with her last week when she went to do a pickup then, and I'll be doing a pickup today. Here are my favourite items that we got to try from last week's batch:

Adirondack blue potatoes -- the same substance that makes blueberries so good for you is what gives these potatoes their colour

Fennel bulb -- I know that fennel isn't extremely exotic by most standards, but in our household, it is. It was one of those "what the heck do I do with this?" items, but I'm so glad this creature found its way into our home! Here's what became of it:

Fennel salad! And we really, really liked it. So much, in fact, that I will probably start buying the occasional fennel bulb just to make this salad again. Here's the recipe:
* 1 fennel bulb (I had two very small ones) - shaved paper thin on a mandoline
* 1 tbsp lime juice
* 2 tbsp olive oil
* 1/4 tsp thyme
* 1 tbsp parsley
* 2 tbsp parmesan
* 1 tsp pesto (I used the Classico stuff)
It was such a refreshing summer salad. I can't wait to make it again. Now I'm looking forward to what "challenges" this afternoon's batch will present.
Do any of you CSA? Do you love/hate it?

KUI (Knitting under the influence)...

You end up knitting doubles:

You saw the right hand turtle before in a previous post. The left hand turtle is part of an ensemble I put together for a very dear someone-expecting. He comes with a matching blanket:

This brings the official UFO count down to 11...but I keep adding to the list without realizing it. We'll see how far along the list I make it this week!

How I know that Southerners are actually Egyptian

Our church, St. Tim's, is great about organizing activities to promote community among the congregation. One of those activities is the "Sinners Dinner" which involves putting your name in a lottery from which groups are drawn. You meet with your group roughly once a month for a year before the groups get switched up again. Brian and I did not sign up when the current season started in September, but we ended up getting adopted by some choir friends into their Sinners Dinner group. Ours is a really fun bunch. We've met with them twice so far, and will be meeting with them again tonight.
It had been suggested that this month, we keep the gathering a small affair by doing appetizers only. An email thread was started to give everyone a sense of who was bringing what. Reading the responses, I observed that each household was bringing 2-3 appetizers/dessert items--hearty ones at that...so my prediction is that we'll have more food than we've had at the actual dinners. My conclusion, therefore, is that for Southerners "keep it small" means "outdo dinner." Sound like anyone you know? Anyone who says, for example, "why don't you come in for a minute just to have a glass of water?" whereby a "glass of water" comes with a side of whole chickens, stuffed grape leaves, veal cutlets, lamb chops, and kebabs? That's not the only similarity I've noticed between Southerners and Egyptians, but I'll save my other observations for another time.
I thought I'd share pictures of our contributions (y'all getting sick of bread pictures yet?)
The bread made it to our list because the couple that hosted last time, Charlie and Rhea, requested it. Rhea pulled me aside at church last week and said, "Charlie said to me 'Do you think she'll make bread again? I sure hope she makes bread!' " which of course elevated them to favourite persons status (for nothing quite strokes my ego like being ASKED to make bread.)

Next up is an item I accidentally invented several months ago, which Brian requested I make again. This is a carrot and celery bruschetta:

We're also doing a warm brie melt (which we'll bake at our host's house) that features homemade cranberry sauce and toasted pecans--or p'CONs as they call them down here. L'assembly:

And tucked away into its little brie baker:

I would share a picture of the crackers that will accompany the brie melt, but they are not homemade. It'll be a while before perfectly uniform discs of amaranth, quinoa, chia, sesame and flax make it into my repertoire.
Good company and good food make for happy Pigotts!

Cheapening a Cheap Date (Ode to a Mason Jar)

At first I hesitated to write this post: I didn't want to be sending out the impression to our friends/family that we have one small bag of rice to live off of for the month, and that we are currently accepting donations. I just think there's a lot to be said for doing things frugally...and since we've decided to be ultra frugal this month, I've been enjoying the challenge of trying to be more creative in doing things.
One of our favourite cheap dates has been the cafe date. It is exactly what it sounds like: visiting a cafe. Inexpensive, entertaining, and often productive (since Brian brings work). But in this month of austerity, we have even suspended cafe dates. As such, I wanted to find a way to recreate the cafe date at home. Yesterday was my first attempt at it. In preparation the day before, I baked healthy cookies, procured a Putumayo album by the name of "French Cafe" and collected some espresso drink recipes.
One useful frugal tidbit I picked up in my research was that there isn't much of a point in buying coffee that is specially labelled as "espresso." Any high quality, dark roast bean will do. Espresso refers strictly to the way in which it is brewed. Typically, one uses a dark roast, very finely ground, but that's not what makes it espresso. It's all in the brewing. We use one of these stovetop espresso makers:

Now, just a couple of days before Cafe Date, my milk frothing gadget bit the dust. And even though I was going to Ikea with a friend shortly after, and even though a new frother was only $3, it was simply not permissible during the month of austerity. Consequently, I ended up preparing flattes (flat lattes), but Brian didn't seem to mind. He was great about playing along with the indoor cafe. He did complain about the French music, and I explained that I thought lousy music was realistic since we often dislike the music we hear at the cafes we frequent. He countered that this was one advantage of the home cafe date, and since he made such a compelling point, I consented to change the station. We weren't even allowed to "go home" if we forgot something "at the apartment." Despite that Brian missed the people watching aspect of a real cafe, I think we had fun with it. But I can't leave well enough alone...
In trying to find a frugal way to froth milk, I came across the idea of using a mason jar. It almost sounded too good to be true: fill the jar with whatever amount of milk you desire (but don't exceed half the capacity of the jar), cover it tightly, and shake it for a full thirty seconds. Then microwave it for 30-45 seconds to stabilize the foam. And you know what? It works. (As a side note, I should mention that some fancy brands of milk will not froth for anything, like the Smart Balance milks. I should also mention that I tried the food processor to no avail. It's all about the mason jar).
So of course we had to repeat cafe date so I could attempt this. I ended up with so much foam that a regular coffee mug wouldn't hold it all. So of course I served our drinks in a mason jar. Thus, the mason jar was twice useful to this cause. Here are today's not so flat vanilla lattes:

Latte Recipe (for one serving)
2 oz brewed espresso
3 tbsp vanilla syrup
8 oz milk, frothed and heated (skim works much better than 2% or whole milk)

Vanilla Syrup Recipe
3/4 cup sugar
3/8 cup water
1/4 - 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
(This made enough syrup for 4-5 drinks)






I like the cross-section view that the jars give as well. We needed spoons to get all the foam out! So, all in all, I was pleased. Of course, I will keep tweaking Cafe Date. Perhaps next time I'll aim for something along these lines:

But for now, the dining table will have to do...

2 Pigotts 2 Few

A couple of weeks ago, the Pigott population of our household was doubled, only to be reduced by half again shortly after. It was wonderful while it lasted though. I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

It was a blessing to have them with us.

Play Ball!

I feel I would have absolutely no claim to the title of this blog if I didn't actually support our baseball team--The Dash. And so last night, this was rectified. Brian and I met with Sarah (Brian's mentor) at the ballpark to enjoy fellowship over simulated cheese, loud music, and baseball. Our team was playing the Myrtle Beach Pelicans.
Because Monday night's game had been rained out, last night's was a doubleheader. The evening was off to a good start:

Look, if you don't bring knitting to sporting events, you're really missing out. As Sarah explained, it is the perfect pairing of mindless activities. And my yarn stash isn't going to knit itself you know.
Sarah decked us out in Dash attire:

She caught that Dash t-shirt for me from the t-shirt cannon, and bought us our very own dash hats. I'm quite fond of our Dash hats.
Now at some point I became worried that Brian was overexerting himself by sitting in his chair, and I really didn't want him to faint for want of nourishment, so we remedied that with this nice wholesome snack:

I always say that if your cheese isn't of a runny, fluorescent composition, it's not fit for consumption.
I did my part by devouring an entire bag of cotton candy on my own:

The Dash lost the first game 6 to 3, but won the second game 4 to 0. The best part was that Krispy Kreme (born and glazed in Winston Salem since 1937) announced that if The Dash made 9 or more hits in last night's game, and if you mentioned this when ordering donuts, you could buy a dozen donuts for $4. I patiently waited for that 9th hit, which occurred around 10:30, then was content to call it a night. I have yet to follow up on my Krispy Kreme errand, but will keep you posted if I'm brave enough to buy a whole dozen of them (I feel it would be insulting to Jane if I did not).
All in all it was a great night, and I concur with my husband's analysis that minor league baseball is more fun to watch than major league. It was also great practice for when Brian's parents join us in just a few days...we'll be dashing it up again with them too!

Happy Dooda Day!

That is to say, "Happy Mothers Day!" In my case, Dooda is a synonym for mother, because I call my mom Dooda (which means worm). So, imagine my delight when, three weeks before Mother's Day, I came across a sewing pattern for a small stuffed worm! Of course, I had to make and send her one. But then Brian came up with the brilliant idea of holding the worm hostage, so that Mom would have to come visit us in order to claim her worm. Torn between wanting to send her a worm, and wanting to have a hostage worm, I decided to make two. So Dooda, you must read to the end of this post to understand the package you received.
The pattern called for wool felt, and I didn't have any on hand. I had plenty of other fabrics, but there's something about a woolly worm that just feels right, so I made my wool fabric myself. I took some yarn from my stash, and knit it into a swatch:

Then I tossed it into a stockpot of boiling water:

I let it boil for over an hour as the smell permeated the apartment. Yummmmm....wet dog. Now, this technique for felting failed miserably. There wasn't the slightest indication of any felting at all in trying this method. Instead, I had to use the washing machine strategy. I soaped up the swatch, and tossed it into a pile of laundry that was destined for a hot and violent cycle. This was a far more successful enterprise:

 Next, I cut my pattern pieces:

And there were enough scraps to serve as worm guts! (By worm guts, I mean filling.)
Here's how they turned out:

Our male specimen was dispatched last week, and arrived at Dooda's residence Wednesday afternoon with instructions that the package in which he was contained was NOT to be opened until today. However, we have retained the female. She now spends most of her days gazing out of the window forlornly, longing for the day when she will reunite with her counterpart.

So for the sake of everyone involved, Dooda, please come and get your other worm.

A "garden among the flames..."

The first word that came to my mind the day we arrived in NC was "infernal." The heat was overwhelming to me (and to be fair, August is one of the hottest months of the year here). Yet in less than a year, I'm already growing accustomed to it. It is true that I complain of the hot weather when it interferes with my baking, but on the whole, I'm really surprised by how quickly we are adjusting to this climate.
Now, because we arrived in August (well after spring) I initially only experienced the brutality of the heat, and missed witnessing what the added warmth does for plant growth here during the vernal months. So, this is our first spring season in Winston...and you know how they say "Virginia is for lovers"? They missed the mark by one state northward. North Carolina is for lovers--it's just not as easy to say. Springtime North Carolina is teeming with so much natural beauty that it seems to me the ideal backdrop for a wedding. And on that note, we will be attending the wedding of our friend and choir director, Christin, tomorrow, in the mountain town of Banner Elk. One of the choir members, Laurie, is arranging all of the flowers for the wedding, and I was lucky enough to get to tag along and learn from her expertise (under the pretext of serving as an extra pair of hands). As such, I spent yesterday morning, and the better part of today in...

Narnia Laurie's yard, which is home to 88 rose bushes, several of which are furnishing many of tomorrow's blooms. Other flower sources include the yard of Christin's parents, which contains a rose bush that her grandfather used to pick roses from to hand to ladies at church. How beautiful is that? I learned from Laurie that it's a very southern thing to use flowers from the gardens of friends and family for your wedding, and seeing/smelling the sorts of flowers that grow here, and the abundance with which they grow, I can see why! Here is some of the raw material (all picked by Laurie...none of it was from a florist!):

The peonies and the English roses smelled absolutely enchanting. I can't remember, but I think there were over 20 pails of flowers and foliage.  Yesterday, we conditioned the flowers, and today we did the arranging. First was Christin's bouquet (and since she doesn't know about this blog, I can safely share pictures without ruining any surprises for her):

Next, we worked on centerpieces. We started out with these:

(How gorgeous are these nests?) And filled them with greenery and florals:

I will take pictures of the final products at the wedding tomorrow, including a couple of other really cool designs that Laurie is probably working on right now, as I type. She was so fun to hang out with, and I was really grateful for the fellowship and community I got to share with her today.
I found the whole procedure of the arranging to be very spiritual. It wasn't just because I was surrounded by the beauty of creation; that was certainly part of it, but it was in how organically and prayerfully I had to approach the task. No two baskets were shaped identically, and each arrangement was unique, so it really did feel like an instance of Providence when (every time, without fail) I was able to find the perfect shape, size, and colour of flower for every gap and void in every arrangement.
Laurie made sure to send me home with a HUGE armful of roses with which to grace our dining room table as well:

All of this made me long for a grassy knoll of my own in NC on which to grow all manner of brilliant thing. Sigh. Sometimes it's hard to not fall in love with the dash.

An Invaluable Secret

Do you hate it when your food is fresh? Yeah, I didn't think so. The only person I know of who might possibly complain about the freshness of food is Oscar the Grouch. And for the most part, I like my food to be as fresh as possible too...but when it comes to eggs, we know what fresh means there: the impossibility of peeling them. My mom told me of an apocryphal she'd-be-a-good-wife test that used to take place in Egypt back in the day...give the lady in question a freshly laid egg. If, after boiling, she could successfully peel it, she was worth marrying.
Now, I've heard it said that if you leave your eggs in the fridge for 5 days, that should make them easy to peel. That simply hasn't worked for the eggs I buy. Observe les oueffes:

Believe it or not, these organic beauties are from Costco! Does anyone know if Costco in Canada sell organic eggs now too? My ability to re-reside there depends on the answer to that question...but I digress.
So I'm not sure if these eggs are just ultra fresh, or if being organic has anything to do with it, but I simply cannot peel them cleanly for the life of me (thank God my engagement to Brian wasn't based on that!) Even leaving them for a week doesn't change things. But today, my world was changed. I learned the trick to peeling ultra fresh eggs. Are you ready? Boil your eggs as you usually do, to your liking. I like to put mine in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, turn off heat, and leave them on the burner for 12-13 minutes (this is for hard boiled). Now, once they are cooked, place them immediately in an ice water bath for 1 minute (I did this for 2). You already knew that, right? But here's the part I didn't know about: as the eggs are resting in the ice bath, bring the pot of water back to a simmer. When the minute is up, return the eggs to the simmering water for 10 seconds. What this does is expand the shell (without further cooking the eggs, since it's only 10 seconds). I tried it, and it worked pretty well! I hope this makes your kitchen eggsperiences more enjoyable :)

One UFO down, 13 more to go

Everytime I start a craft project, I think of twelve more I want to make. And sometimes I don't even have the self control to wait until I'm finished before starting another one. This is why I currently have an embarrassing number of UFOs (unfinished objects) on the go (and even more in queue). Discovering this book:

is not helping my condition. This book alone contains 10 projects that have piqued my interest. I'm trying to ignore it. How do I ignore a book whose determination to control me is greater than my own determination to resist? I would gladly welcome your advice!
Thus, since my victories in this aspect of my life are few and far between, I feel they must be flaunted. Recently upgraded from UFO status to FO status is this funny looking critter:

It's a turtle with a removable shell. I'd love to tell you more about it, but I can hear my angry needles tearing apart the house, looking for me, wanting to know why I'm not sewing/knitting. Sigh. Perhaps one day I'll have the courage to leave them.