Simplified Summer Notations

When life gets busy this blog gets quiet, and while that's exactly the opposite of how I like things to go, it happens.

Somehow my camera activity quieted down this summer, too. It was a fun whirlwind, though, so I just spent some time going through my humble selection of shots from the summer to share with you.

I hope you enjoy the still images captured in often activity-filled moments. That's what I just love about photography. I can be blinking my eyes awake as I walk through the living room in the morning and see the light fall just right across a chair. It will cause me to stop and admire and crop in close before rushing into a day. It's the same thing with a dinner eaten alone on a wide white table. The prettiness of simple, seemingly mundane things.

I don't know how I'd make it through life's busyness without these mentally recorded or shutter-captured notations, and my soul gets extra hungry when I go too long without stopping for them.



In May my sister and I traveled down to Oregon to spend time with good friends, and spent time in the gorgeous wine country.



I finally made it to Honore in Ballard one Sunday morning in June. The next day I was ready to go back.



Friends and I began a book club with the book The Help, so I made my first caramel cake based on this recipe I've been wanting to try for years.



A trip to Texas happily coincided with getting to celebrate a dear friend's birthday there together. We took a well air-conditioned drive from Dallas to San Antonio and stopped at FoodHeads in Austin for a perfect birthday lunch.



July in San Antonio, Texas, was oh so hot but oh so worth it, with the priceless celebration of the marriage of two college friends.



I ended my season of working at our local artisan cheese shop, and this was the last bunch of flowers I got from the shop's neighbor and friend...a surplus bouquet from a Steven Moore wedding. I remember the secretly enjoyed pleasure of quietly walking through Fairhaven that Sunday evening with my treasures: a baguette under one arm and these with a bunch of pink peonies cradled in another.



A favorite recipe from the summer, but one that I'm not sure how to replicate: cornmeal, coconut milk, plum cake. I'll give it another shot and share the recipe if I'm happy with it.



These little legs belong to a nephew of mine. He and his not-much-bigger brother and parents visited Washington and brightened our days throughout their time here.



My little sister (and one of my best friends) turned another year older, so I made her a gluten-free crepe cake.



September brought the annual Greek festival hosted practically in our front yard, which meant four days of white tent peaks filling the view out our windows and music, gyros, and friends flowing in and out of our house.

[The photo at the top is of the front of our house with our rhododendrons in vibrant bloom.]

Posted on 5 October 2011 | 8:04 pm

A Croissant and a Tourteau

It started with thumbing through a cookbook at my favorite local shop. Unable to resist reaching for a binding printed with the block-letter words "New French Recipes" a luxurious but simple lunch idea was born.

Since I left Europe in December of 2005, I have been nurturing a love of its various regions. My ventures into cheesemongering and macaron-making have inevitably grown a particularly French intrigue, and so it is impossible for titles concerning this culture and its cuisine not to thoroughly entice me.

And yet, constantly aware of the ability a cookbook collection has to boom out of control, I try to be extra selective about what I purchase versus what I browse for on food blogs versus what I check out from the library. In this case, selecting and mentally tucking away one recipe within the pages of Éric Kayser's New French Recipes allowed me to peaceably put the book back on its shelf.

Not feeling rushed, I figured I would eventually get around to the recipe (if it can even be named so formally), but the next day it was convenient to stop by the local cheese shop and my grocery list started to form. I was hoping to find Comté, but the next closest option was a cave-aged Gruyère, which would do just fine. Continuing to piece together ingredients, I picked up a croissant at the bakery as well.





This is where my sights were set: a pan-grilled sandwich of melty Alpine-style cheese, crunchy bites of sweet hazelnuts, and savory nibbles of green garlic, simply seasoned with cracked pepper and assembled within a flaky butter croissant. To make it a meal, baby heirloom tomatoes waited at home to nestle along the side of the plate.

A little more grand but similar, this sandwich reminds me of the nut, cheese, and bread combination I latched onto while living in Oxford. Planning a coach trip into London or a study session at the park, I would slice cheese and lay it flat across the face of whole wheat sandwich bread. Gently pressing halved walnuts into the cheese, I would complete the sandwich with another slice of bread spread with blackcurrant jam. Sometimes I would use marmalade or a different flavor of jam, and sometimes the cheese would be Brie, sometimes Port Salut, or sometimes sharp English cheddar; it was simple and on a college student's budget, but I loved it. These sandwiches, Digestives, and ten cups of black British tea a day (plus chicken breasts from the farmer's market) were my staples that semester.



Before ending this blog post, let me revert briefly back to France. The very same day I made that grilled croissant sandwich, I received a cookbook from my brother and his wife, a cookbook I have no qualms adding to my collection.

I love curling up and reading Dorie Greenspan's voice, whether it is out of my copy of Baking, her blog, or many of her publication appearances. Now, I get to listen to her from Around My French Table, a cookbook that thoroughly won me over several months ago when first seeing it at a bookshop and flipping to this page:



This tourteau sounded so enjoyable, I am hoping to make it my first completed recipe out of the cookbook...if the strawberry, tomato, mozzarella salad or olive sables do not push their way to the top first. I will be sure to keep you posted.

Posted on 3 July 2011 | 12:24 am

Summer Palettes

The sky above finally clears and assures us below that blue can indeed stretch from horizon to horizon over Western Washington. Looking at the ground when my eyes are not turned up toward this hopeful summer expanse, a gathered coat of white reminds me of another summer-time scene from the near-underside of the globe.


In New Zealand, the Pohutukawa trees inevitably shed their soft pink bristles and coat the ground around them. A year and a half ago, I paused on a well-tread sidewalk and, stepping down next to the curb, bent low to capture an essential part of the land's summer palette, seen in the photograph above.


Here is my driveway today, and the concentration of nature's shedding and settling in this particular land.



And I just have to share photographed evidence that the skies surely cleared. The sun shone fearlessly. The temperatures climbed brazenly (that's all subjective of course, considering the high was around seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit).

Eating dinner inside would have been an injustice to this gift of a day, so I tossed together a panzanella inspired by a leftover portion of Breadfarm's Black Olive Baguette and settled into the mossy grass outside my front door (picking white fluff out of my bread salad along the way).

Posted on 21 June 2011 | 8:21 pm

Home

An idea, a concept, an intrigue has been floating - sometimes swirling - around in my head and pinging my heart recently. I catch it in song lyrics, conversations, and turning pages.

Home has been a fluid experience in my life, while also steady and stable enough in certain senses to keep me grounded in shifts of geographical location, school environments, and community circles. I am not trying to nail down a definition of it for myself right now, but I am wanting to churn through it intentionally in my art, my interactions, and my writing.



I know right now that "inner settledness" makes a lot of sense in relation to home, and in seeking this, the ability to name a place home for as long or as short as may be the case comes more easily. And love. Love is essential here; being in a place of receiving and getting to offer overflow.

Posted on 16 June 2011 | 9:42 am

Chronicling Days Off III

Days off come around every two weeks or so. I am not complaining (a couple work days are only three to five hours, anyway). When I woke up this morning confused briefly as to what day it was, it was delightful to realize my neglected alarm wasn't making me late for work or a running date.

Going into the day, it was a toe-curling pleasure to see sunshine and need car windows rolled down, riding with James Vincent McMorrow and Oh Land in my speakers; to match Pickwick with screen doors and open kitchen windows; to pair Lisa Hannigan with measuring flour under evening light; and to wear whatever colors and uncomfortable shoes I wanted because there was no decor to match or good soles needed for long periods of standing...



[Days off are for] strolling through Fairhaven in good company. Stopping for poppies along the sidewalk; sipping margaritas; acquiring a madeleine pan.



[Days off are for] finding a used copy of a cookbook I've craved for its smooth aesthetic and clean typography, the charming British voice of Nigel Slater, and recipes like pistachio cake.







[Days off are for] taking the time to walk over to the neighbor's fence and see their rose blooms through a viewfinder.



[Days off are for] spontaneously gathering together the ingredients for an old familiar from my mother's kitchen and making it my own: Sally Lunn Bread.

Posted on 12 June 2011 | 9:20 pm

Travels to Seattle: A New Favorite Cookbook

It has been more than a month since I went to Seattle for Heidi Swanson's book signing. The albums of photos on my computer have grown and stories and thoughts along with them. There will never be time to always share all the moments while they are fresh, and I suppose this is why we have memories to store up more than we have time to express at once. I love recalling something forgotten for a good ten years.

Before moving into the present, I want to note my appreciation of Heidi's new cookbook Super Natural Every Day. It has already received much due praise from bloggers much more reputable than me. Check out the words of Matt Bites, Smitten Kitchen, Steamy Kitchen, Lottie + Doof, and La Tartine Gourmande.

101 Cookbooks was one of the first food blogs I ever encountered. I have been returning to it for four years, drawn to the author Heidi Swanson's photography, voice, and clean organization and thoughtful arrangement of typography and details. Heidi's graphic design skills shine through here, and the same fine aesthetic has transferred into both her cookbooks, Super Natural Cooking and Super Natural Every Day.

I have recognized a natural affinity for the recipes within these pages, embracing new ingredients and combinations and drawing to old familiars like Japanese flavors, Indian spices, and grains like quinoa (a friend commented the other day about how my mother was serving quinoa at the family table long before half the Northwest knew what it was!).

The first recipe out of the new cookbook that I mentally earmarked was the Tutti-Frutti Crumble. If I do not start reading a cookbook from the dessert collection, then I struggle to put it down before flipping beyond the savory pages. I have an undeniable sweet tooth but not the frosting-laden sort, which is why I mesh so well with Heidi's palate. I grew up on half-whole-wheat claufoutis and fruit-rich crumbles for dessert, so the thought of enhancing such a simply perfect dessert as a crumble or crisp with poppy seeds, currants, and Beaujolais wine delightfully challenges the definition of perfection.





Between my fantasies of that crumble and the present, I was drawn back into the lunch and dinner pages, and I know this is a cookbook I will continue to flip through from cover to cover. (Breakfast deserves due attention, as well.) I acquired tarragon and remembered that I had seen it mentioned in the subtitle of a Wild Rice Casserole. Cremini mushrooms, mustard, and Gruyère were also components, and considering that Western Washington has kept us bundled in sweatshirts and slippers through May, it sounded like a lovely warming dish. (Oh, it was.)



And then there is the kale salad that I ate for a week straight, and even still, this pattern could have pleasantly lasted longer. Salty tamari and toasted sesame oil infuse crunchy roasted kale leaves and thick coconut flakes. Then these are tossed with whatever grain is at hand, like the big batch of cooked brown basmati rice in my fridge. It is such an easy recipe, I have enthusiastically relayed it in conversation, and I have already played around with it based on our vegetable supply. Kale is not the only hearty green that works, and a successful adaption involved thick coins of white leeks in the roasting pan along with the kale and coconut. A poached egg on top, and I could live on this meal.



On a side note, I rolled out of a friend's bed at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday to get home to Bellingham that weekend. Swinging by Cloud City Coffee on my way out of Seattle, I stocked up with an Americano and treat for the drive. That treat was a slice of Coconut Bread, and - oh wow - it was sublime. I would love to find a good recipe for such a loaf. Do you have any recipes to share?

Posted on 10 June 2011 | 11:43 pm

Staying Awake: Blogger Links

Some nights I can't seem to go to bed late enough. Against my better judgment, I start a movie at ten o'clock, or I get home from work around eleven and distract my sister from homework by asking her about her day or venting about my own.

On Friday night, I finished closing the shop and arrived home at 11:15 to find myself wide awake and wanting to savor the quiet darkness of our home. I wanted to sip bitter hot chocolate, let my new love of James Vincent McMorrow's music grow, and browse through some of my favorite food blogs unhurried, reading posts word-for-word.



Reading blogs always turns me back to my own because I admire the giftings of so many food (and otherwise) bloggers out there. They add beauty and richness to this world, and inspire me to humbly attempt to do the same.

In this brief time of meandering here's what I found that may be enjoyable to you as well:

Almond extract and almond paste. My attention always hones in on recipes involving these components, and Molly recently posted a promising looking cake including both. Oh, and do try to sit still and absorb the words of her narrative preceding the recipe. Her voice is just lovely, always.

India and summertime. Heidi has adapted a wonderfully fresh, light yet full-flavored salad from Sanjeev Kapoor's How to Cook Indian, and it looks like something I could happily live on through the course of the coming summer. Speaking of summer, the first sunny days of May are very appropriate times to pull out the Pimms, don't you think? I must seek some out.

Further link love. Luisa, The Wednesday Chef, shares some favorite links each Friday, and I am especially grateful she shared a link to Kumquat Earl Grey Marmalade. I have not canned before, and I have only ever had kumquats picked off the trees on my college campus several years ago, but I adore both marmalade and earl grey. (Perhaps I'll modify with the overflowing bowl of blood oranges in my kitchen.)

Design delicious. It's not just the recipes, the writer's voice, or their photographs that draw me to food blogs. These components all need attention, but clean white space and good typography make the experience of visiting the blog (almost) as good as venturing into the kitchen with a recipe itself. Lottie + Doof does this for me as does Sprouted Kitchen. Heaps of white space and the approachable use of "+" are so very attractive.

As soon as I get photos transferred from my camera to computer, I'll share the events of the previous weekend, which involved ooohing and aaawing at Lara Ferroni's gorgeous studio space and getting a personal note from the talented Heidi Swanson herself in my new cookbook.



Meanwhile, I will leave you with a crumpet that I made last week. It was my first attempt, and while it took going through a whole batch to feel like I hit on success in this last one, the effort was worthwhile. Because of it, a family awoke at 3:30 in the morning to watch the royal wedding, sharing in their twelve-year-old daughter's enthusiasm, and toasting up fresh crumpets that dripped with honey and smeared butter. Even though I don't have a personal affection for William and Kate, I still find this form of family-bonding to be a lovely idea.

Whether or not a prince is getting married, I think we should all make crumpets more often. Here's a worthwhile recipe, though I would recommend flipping the crumpets for a final light browning on their tops.

Posted on 7 May 2011 | 12:03 am

Nourishment All Along

Life begins to whir like the paddle in the giant mixer that folds and whips cake batter before me week to week. At work I can flick off the switch and silence comes just as I command it. In the day-to-day, sometimes I have to adjust my steps to a point well beyond a mixture of flour, eggs, sugar, buttermilk, cocoa, etc. would survive and remind myself that deep slow breaths counteracting quick feet actually builds endurance.



Then it amazes me how many different ways I attempt to fill my lungs until I finally settle in on what always works: sleep, sweat, nature's air, true words. But I try some Netflix pick again; I stay up late scanning Facebook; I cook or bake and create more dirty dishes instead of reading and responding to stilling words...and my stomach wasn't even hungry. It has been my disquiet heart that's been asking for nourishment all along.

When windows of time are few and my will is weak, reaching for my camera and focusing on little frames in life helps me get to that soul-satisfaction that is so far beyond the tangible. I get just a little closer to the source. My heart recognizes beauty and knows gratitude.



So I do not have a recipe for you today because life hasn't allowed for that organization recently, unfortunately. I can point you in this direction for a new and memorable chocolate chip cookie recipe, and in that direction for warming braised cabbage that pairs perfectly with a slice of bread smeared with chevre and hosting a gently poached egg. But this post is not ultimately about gastronomy.

It is about a cup that overflows. It is about being forced to stop and just receive for an entire day because I have a boss who believes birthdays should be celebrated and birthday girls should not have to whir up another batch of cake or steam milk for another latte when "Happy Birthday!" declarations are called for. There's something to this, even though I consider such pure reception a true exercise. It doesn't come naturally. I feel like it's greedy and childish to ask for the attention. I fear that some degree is out of obligation and not desire.




Birthday breakfast.

This is what I anticipate and build-up within as the marked day approaches, but my eyes always widen in wonder even in the first few moments of the day. My spirit feels like it could burst by the time my body slips back beneath sheets. Thank you to all who made my birthday feel so rich. Thank you so much to those who have built into these years to make it impossible to begrudge living to a twenty-fifth year. In all humility, I love my life story.





Snow on birthday morning!

As you can see, I have some extra flowers in my house this week and I do consider freshly cut flowers and words of affection to be the most wonderful gifts. Simplicity frequently encapsulates the most.




A birthday "cake" from mom.

These glimpses are what I want to take the time to share today. In the coming days, it is definitely reasonable to expect some great recipes out of cookbooks newly in my possession.

Posted on 16 April 2011 | 6:55 pm

Feasting on Art Recipe Contest

I do love a good challenge, especially one that involves ingredient pairings. When Feasting on Art announced that her second annual recipe contest would revolve around one of my favorite gastronomic subjects, cheese, I could not easily pass it up. Though, I have done an excellent job procrastinating on completing the project, as the deadline is close.


Floris Gerritsz van Schooten, A Still Life of Cheese, c.1585
oil on oak panel, 39.3 x 55.2 cm, Private collection

As much as I wish to be more balanced in my ease in both cooking and baking, baking tends to be my go-to, so instantly that was the direction my brain started spinning. I latched onto the idea of preserving the delicious flavors of spicy, salty blue cheese paired with sweet fruit and rich honey. It took me awhile to land securely on the form this took, as I know it has been done before in varying ways, and when including cheese in dessert-type recipes, there is a balance between intrigue and weirdness. I wanted to avoid the impression of the latter.







Hence, I hope you enjoy this creation. It was inspired by the easy jam tart recipe Smitten Kitchen provided on her blog about a year ago, which she adapted from David Lebovitz's wonderful cookbook Ready for Dessert. I modified the crust by deepening its flavors with buckwheat and honey and added a thin layer of blue cheese before laying down the jam. To finish, a honeyed marmalade glaze subtly balanced the flavors and added a nice sheen to the aesthetic.





I had fun adjusting the purposes in my photography for documenting this tart as well. In honor of the still life by Floris Gerritsz van Schooten that inspired this contest, I wanted to present it in a still life form as if I was setting out to render it with paint myself. Originally my intention was to carry on and do just that, but the afternoon didn't allow for it, and I am about to head into a busy week in which I really shouldn't leave cheese, sliced pear, and this tart (all of which I would like to eat) out in the open air indefinitely. I often wonder how the many still life artists from earlier centuries managed this, regarding food subjects. How long did it take them to finish their paintings? Did van Schooten's enormous chunks of cheese become too moldy? How much food was sacrificed in these endeavors as layers of oil paint dried, similar light was sought each day, and details were meticulously rendered?



Fig Jam and Blue Cheese Tart with Honey Buckwheat Crust

In selecting the cheese to use, I went with Bleu d'Auvergne because it has a creamy richness that is appropriate to dessert but also a relatively assertive spice that would help it hold its own among the other flavors. Any blue that balances these elements will do. I also had the advantage of using a wire cutter to slice the cheese thin, as I work at our local cheese shop. Do your best to get the cheese as thinly sliced as is reasonable with whatever tools you have on hand.

I chose to use a fig jam here because I had a fabulous one on hand. Its rustic texture and honey-like sweetness worked well, but you can certainly be flexible in the flavor you choose.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup buckwheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, whole
1 large egg yolk
3 Tablespoons honey, divided
1/3 pound blue cheese (see above)
1 1/2 cups jam (see above)
1/2 cup orange marmalade

Prepare a 9-inch (23 cm) tart pan with a removable bottom by thoroughly buttering it.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, buckwheat, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and sugar until smooth. On low speed, add the egg, the yolk, and 1 tablespoon of honey. Beat until all is combined, and then gradually add the dry flour mixture. When the entire dough begins to look wet and come together, remove the bowl and stir with a spatula for a few last turns to bring it together into a large ball.

Placing a large square of plastic wrap on the counter, transfer a third of the dough onto it and shape into a a log by folding the plastic around it and squeezing it long. It should measure about two inches (5 cm) in diameter. Place in freezer to harden until needed for the top of the tart.

Transfer the rest of the dough into the buttered tart pan and press it evenly around the pan. Using your fingers, spread the dough up the sides to the scalloped rim, bringing it level. When this is completed, refrigerate or freeze the dough until firm (I froze it for thirty minutes, and then it was ready to go).

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Lay a single layer of blue cheese down against the bottom crust of the tart. Spoon the jam over this and spread evenly.

Retrieve the log of dough from the freezer and cut it into very thin rounds. Layer each round on top of the jam, arranging to overlap each other and cover the top completely. Bake until the top crust is golden brown, 20-25 minutes.

As the tart is cooling, heat the marmalade and remaining 2 tablespoons of honey in a small saucepan on medium heat. Stir frequently, until it smooths and thins out. Pour through a fine sieve, separating the orange rinds from the hot liquid. Discard rinds and brush the top of the tart with this glaze.

Savor and enjoy! The tart will keep well at room temperature for a few days and still taste good if kept longer in the refrigerator. Perfect for breakfast, afternoon tea, or dessert.

Posted on 20 March 2011 | 10:05 pm

Chronicling Days Off II

The sun has been generous to show its face in Bellingham the last few days.



Though it will be nice to finally have curtains on all my windows soon, I might just get in the habit of pulling one back right before slipping into bed so that I don't lose these opportunities for slow soft awakenings by morning light. An old fence, dirty white, and barren branches of plum trees fill my view. I know whether it is windy by the sway of the tall pines beyond. A damp grey blanket, puffy white clouds, or clear blue offer hints as to what I will encounter as I habitually move through quiet living room, step across cold kitchen floor, and fill my water glass at the sink beneath a window that faces the fresh day's sun.

This little house embraces outside light in such a rich sweet way that ten months into dwelling here, I still revel in it...



[Days off are for] admiring new curtains hanging over closet space.



[Days off are for] sipping another brand of ginger ale/beer and hoping I'll taste a bit of New Zealand.


(I have yet to find one that matches up, though Delancey's house recipe is the closest.)

[Days off are for] making wheaten tea biscuits to replenish my depleted supply of Digestives.

Posted on 19 March 2011 | 10:14 am

Memories [Old and New]

Life has circled back around, and it is March. I am stirring two separate bowls of thick batter, one of which is creamy white and the other bright green and bitter. Tulip bouquets are now available outside the co-op, and I have a pitcher-full in the living room. Four years ago so many things were different, but two things are the same: I am in the kitchen making Matcha and White Chocolate Cake; there are tulips in reach, and I swear they are lifting their chins for the nearest camera lens.



I have made this marbled cake to share before, and upon request I am layering a bit of green and a bit of white and swirling a fork throughout. A certain friend is coming to town, and if she asked, I would make her five batches of puff pastry, a Bûche de Noël (with meringue mushrooms, even), or Boeuf Bourguignon - she's that sort of friend. But all she wants is Matcha and White Chocolate Cake.

I delivered a slice of this cake on a plain napkin to her journalism department when we were students focusing on papers, dreaming of more sleep, and scheming up future plans. The latter hasn't ceased, and it never should. But now we gather and savor this precious opportunity for catch-up as we talk about our day-to-day professions, friends who are married or soon will be, and what life looks like in opposite areas of the country.

Three of us gather, the third being an integral part of this reunion, and completing a trio of girls getting a trio of days to laugh, to draw serious, and to savor the pre-spring feel all about Puget Sound.





We scoot close on beached logs lining a pebbled shore. We brave wind and persevere despite chilled fingers to nibble wheat berries mixed into a salad of greens, sweet potatoes, and walnuts, with an orange-shallot vinaigrette.







We break apart the homemade loaf, view foreign shores, and pose with a whimsical bottle opener.





We ferry to Bainbridge Island. The pace is slow; the sun appears and disappears; there is wine to be sipped, and as the Seattle skyline draws close again, it is agreed that dinner at Delancey will be the right end to the night.








Morning comes with a few last stops squeezed in before a dear friend's plane departs: chocolate samples before noon; decadent cupcakes boxed for carry-on back to Texas; hopeful spring blossoms; a visit to the Fremont Troll and his bridge.

So we return to this memorable marbled cake. Its flavors are simple and yet exotic, and each slice reveals a different pattern of gorgeous color. I really don't know why I let four years go by without making it again. I followed the same recipe practically to the letter, so I will simply refer you back to the beautiful blog La Tartine Gourmande by Béa. My original post is here.

Posted on 13 March 2011 | 9:40 pm

Brazen Proclamations: The Best Damn Meyer Lemon Cake

Sometimes the name of a recipe can make all the difference in its appeal. Beyond just listing tasty components like chocolate, cardamom, anchovies, lavender, or fresh fennel (preferably not all together), I am likely to dog-ear a recipe if its name includes something like "The Cake That Got Me Fired" or "The Winning-Hearts-and-Minds Cake".



Around the time that I discovered Saveur magazine (thanks to my culinary-savvy uncle), I stumbled across the recipe on its website for "The Best Damn Meyer Lemon Cake." Such a brazen proclamation caught my full attention and has held it for at least two years.

Finally, I got around to making the recipe last week when I decided to veer off my grocery list (a frequent occurrence, actually). Too evocative of the coming spring season to pass by, I scooped up six meyer lemons and have been squeezing them into pasta and zesting them into vinaigrettes, but not before I set aside three for this set purpose.

Even though my experience in lemon cakes is limited, my results from this cake recipe were indeed damn good. The crumb was tight and moist. The taste was pure and gentle with fresh lemony tang around the golden crusted edges. I probably could have achieved more lemon flavor throughout but did not want to purchase lemon extract, since it is so rarely called for in recipes I encounter. Zesting an extra lemon ensured sufficient flavor, and I would use the same method all over again.



The Best Damn Meyer Lemon Cake
Adapted from Saveur

Serves 8-10

I did not use the pan the original recipe specified (a light-colored metal loaf versus a dark one). Because of this, my cake did brown to a degree, but in no way that altered its taste. I simply needed to slip foil over it about twenty minutes into the baking process. Also worth noting before getting started, this cake improves with some sitting time, so try to bake it well enough ahead of serving. I allowed twelve hours from baking to slicing, but twenty-four is recommended.

8 Tbsp. melted butter, plus more for pan
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. fine salt
2 eggs, at room temp
1/2 cup whole milk, at room temp
1/2 cup almond meal
Zest of 3 meyer lemons
Juice of 2 meyer lemons

Heat oven to 350°. Butter a loaf pan measuring 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 2 3/4" and, for extra security, you may tuck in a square of parchment paper to line the long sides for easy removal.

Melt butter and allow it to cool slightly as you sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Combine butter and 1 cup of sugar in the large bowl of a standing mixer (or large bowl with electric hand beaters within reach). Mix until well combined, about 1 minute. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating just long enough to incorporate.

Next, alternate additions of the flour mixture and milk: on low speed, add a third of each batch at a time, beginning and ending with the flour.

Using a broad spatula, scrape down sides of bowl and gently fold in the lemon zest and almond meal to complete a sunshiny yellow fluid batter. Turn it into the prepared loaf pan and bake for approximately 60 minutes. (Depending on the tint of your pan, it may start to brown around 20 minutes. If so, cover with foil). Once a toothpick comes out of the center clean, remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

In the last ten minutes of baking your cake, prepare the glaze: in a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the remaining 1/3 cup of sugar and the lemon juice. Stir frequently until dissolved but not boiling.

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, and while the glaze is still hot, begin to brush it over the slopping surface of the cake. Patiently brush layer over layer until all the liquid has been absorbed. At this point, turn the cake out of its pan and allow it to cool upright on the cooling rack. When it has reached room temperature (or close to), wrap well in plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature for at least 12 hours.

Posted on 10 March 2011 | 8:59 pm

BlogCrush: Feasting on Art

Food is integral to our daily living, and I would argue that so is the interaction with art. This does not mean you have to be creating art or overtly involved in the appreciation of it, but (without getting into a conversation on the definition of art) it taps at our senses and exists alongside us whether or not we take notice. Through the beauty of a sunrise, the tapping of a foot or swaying of a hip to rhythm, the lacing of cream through a fresh cup of coffee, the adornment of a necklace...and if we keep counting and collecting with each step we take, we might just get dizzy. At least I do from time to time.

This is why I think it was absolutely genius for art historian and food lover Megan Fizell to strike up an educational conversation on the interaction of food and art in the format of her blog Feasting on Art. She leads this conversation with poise and intrigue, and I have been drawn to her posts ever since discovering the blog just over a year ago.

I am not the only one to get hooked. Her comprehensive treatment of the site and each art piece, recipe, and photograph have earned her a lot of well-deserved publicity. If you have not seen her beautiful work, this is what each of these new BlogCrush featurettes is all about: sharing blogs that please and inspire me, in hopes that you might encounter more inspiration and pleasure in your life.

I love the taste of art history included in each post, taking me back to the lecture room in my university's art department where I spent many hours jotting down dates, cultural trends, and questions while viewing projected image after image under dim light.

Currently, Feasting on Art is in the midst of its second annual recipe contest, and I would encourage you to check it out. The topic this year is cheese, based on the painting below.


I couldn't possibly decline such a challenge with all the hours I spend working behind the counter of my city's fine cheese shop. It will be fun, and there are some great incentives, including the opportunity to win a hardcover copy of the cookbook Food of the Louvre (Musee Du Louvre)!

Note: All photography is by Megan Fizell and used with her permission.

Posted on 27 February 2011 | 2:00 pm

Christchurch Quake: Food, Security, Love

Tonight my heart is with the city of Christchurch. My heart intertwined with the nation of New Zealand at the age of four, when my family of six transplanted our lives there, and though my connections are mostly sewn to the North Island, friends who moved to the South Island hosted my sister, mum, and me when we visited last year. Our longest extension of time on the South Island was with these friends in Christchurch, and my sister and I nudged each other and sighed together in knowing ways throughout our time there. We had work visas that would allow us an additional eight months in the country if we chose, and it was easy to imagine ourselves spending those months in this city. It was grey and drizzly like the northwest corner of America we know so well, and it has the historical spires that remind us of beloved England. Additionally, it is thoroughly Kiwi, and that's the best part.

As my thoughts and prayers turn toward Christchurch's communities and the effects of the devastating earthquake upon its nation, I have a somewhat relevant recipe to share. Ironically, I have been planning to share this recipe all weekend, though I wonder if the descriptor "relevant" would in fact more appropriately be "trivial". We all must eat, but an elaborate recipe at a time when some families are simply grateful to not have any empty seats around their tables? And what of those people who must face the gaping hole of a missing mother, father, brother, or baby?

Food alone cannot heal, and its solace is only temporary, but I am reminded of the connectedness it still brings. I love this quote by M.F.K. Fisher I read in Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef recently:

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it; and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied; and it is all one.

Tonight I write of savory muffins, an unusual concept to many Americans but well handled and abundantly enjoyed by Kiwis and Aussies alike.



I have been quite swamped with sweet baked goods recently, so when my apples were going mealy and soft even a claufoutis or an apple galette did not sound quite right. I loved the apple and gruyere muffins I had made in December but remembered a different recipe I had been wanting to try and decided to adapt it.

These muffins ended up being a lot of fun to create. Working with what I already had in the kitchen, I tweaked the recipe with a French flair of aromatic brie and gentle lavender. The batter was truly the most gorgeous muffin batter I have ever worked with, and its flavors carried right through in a melding hearty way, as I hoped. These are dense muffins chock full of flavor and color that leave the senses satisfied and stomach nourished. I found their most pleasing pairing in a bowl of classic celery soup.





Frequently, when I mention celery soup, I am met with skeptical or outright disgusted responses. Who would turn the common celery stalk into the star of a soup recipe? Apparently someone was daring enough to do this, and my mom was wise enough to follow their lead, making this a favorite meal at the family dinner table. It naturally earned a place in our compilation of family recipes that each child now keeps in his or her adult kitchen. Creamy, rich, and warming, the celery is thickened by silky potatoes and enhanced by a dash of fresh nutmeg.

One of my Christchurch-dwelling friends asked for this soup recipe earlier in the week when I mentioned it on Facebook. I dedicate my blog post to these friends and all New Zealanders who may be considering the basic needs of food, security, and love from new perspectives now. Perspectives temporarily shocked. Perspectives that are forever shifted. They are not alone.





Roasted Apple and Brie Muffins
Adapted from 101Cookbooks (adapted from Martha Goes Green)

Striving for a heartier muffin, I knew I wanted to replace a reasonable amount of the flour with a whole grain type. I used whole wheat pastry flour and found the batter a bit dense and dry, which is where the additional tablespoons of milk came in. You may omit this addition by your own discretion, especially if using entirely all purpose flour.

Makes 12 muffins

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups apple, 1/2-inch cubes
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour + 1 cup all purpose flour
1 large handful salad greens
1 tablespoon dried lavender
3 tablespoons pumpkin seeds, toasted
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1/2 cup Brie cheese, roughly cubed
2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard
2 large eggs
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons whole milk (see recipe)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease 12-hole muffin tin with butter. Set aside.

Spread chopped apples onto single layer of rimmed baking sheet or roasting pan. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss and stir, and bake 15 minutes or until tender and browning. Set aside to cool.

Transfer two-thirds of apples to large mixing bowl, adding salad greens, lavender, pumpkin seeds, Reggiano, two-thirds of brie, and mustard. Gently fold.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs and milk together and add to apple mix. Sift flour and baking powder onto mixture. Top with salt and generous dose of freshly ground black pepper and fold together until all ingredients are just incorporated.

Spoon mixture in prepared muffin pan, filling each hole three-quarters full. Top each muffin with remaining apple bits and brie cubes. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until tops are barely golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool for a couple minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack.

Delicious eaten while still warm. Perfectly revived a day later dunked into a hot soup like the one below.



"Our Favorite" Celery Soup
Used with permission of my mother, Rachael Jewel Bates

Serves 6

1 large bunch celery
1 medium potato, diced
4 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground anise
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (or 1/2 teaspoon fresh)
5 cups water
2 teaspoons salt

Taking celery, cut off and discard its root end and then wash thoroughly. Chop celery coarsely (including celery leaves on stalks - now would be the time to reserve some leaves for garnish if you like). Set aside. Peel and dice potato.

In a heavy saucepan, heat butter. Saute chopped onion and garlic until onion is softened. Stir in nutmeg, anise, and thyme, and cook for one minute.

Add chopped celery, toss to coat with butter and saute for three minutes. Add water, salt, and diced potato and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until celery and potato are soft.

Next, puree in blender or food processor. Serve immediately or gently reheat if necessary. Garnish each serving with celery leaf clusters.

Posted on 22 February 2011 | 9:54 pm

Chronicling Days Off I

I love my job, but, oh, I love my days off. They are not all leisurely, but I certainly try to make them as much so as possible. Capturing their little details through my camera lens helps stretch out their pleasure and remind me of all that was enjoyable when I am in the midst of a tiring week...

[Days off are for] baking bread.





(My latest favorite recipe for everyday bread.)



[Days off are for] admiring the stark lines of bare branches against winter grey.



[Days off are for] eating Red Velvet Cake for an afternoon snack.



[Days off are for] wearing warm fuzzy slippers from New Zealand wool.



[Days off are for] digging into my sister's stash of Lavender Earl Grey tea.

Posted on 17 February 2011 | 10:20 pm

To the Business of Cheese

I started this blog over three years ago as a college student craving a varied form of creativity from my numerous art courses. I found solace and inspiration among the web pages of Orangette, Smitten Kitchen, 101 Cookbooks, Foodbeam, and Chocolate & Zucchini. Today I still enjoy these blogs and more, but my own participation in food blogging has ebbed and I have wondered if that's what I want.

Let me state that is not what I want at all. Of late my desire to food blog has turned to resolve and determination and, thus, some discipline is going to have to come alongside. Initially, post-college, maintaining One Hungry Soul as a food blog simply was not possible as I nomadicly lugged suitcases around the West Coast for two months and then on to New Zealand. I did not have a kitchen of my own, and food blogging was forced into travel blogging with a good dose of musings and photographic snapshots contributed.

It worked, and I enjoyed it. However, I have now had a kitchen for eight months, and just last week I was gifted my very own KitchenAid mixer. It's time to get down to business.



It is rare that my sister and I get the same window of time off work, but on Wednesday we spontaneously managed to get two hours of the afternoon together. Being near Quel Fromage, we had to stop and properly refurnish our refrigerator's cheese box. Arriving home with hungry bellies, we laid out our cheese assortment and popped open a particularly barnyard-y bottle of French cider. To accompany, we took turns reading out-loud from my copy of Best Food Writing 2009.



I am finishing the remainder of Idiazabal and Bonne Bouche as I write this post. Both are absolutely lovely, but the Bonne Bouche, the grey brainy looking round, is always a certain palate pleaser for me. I have a weakness for well developed creamy mold-ripened cheeses, and this young goat cheese by Vermont Creamery is soft and oozy around the edges of the interior (at the age I enjoyed it) with a musty aroma from the ash and humid aging environment. I would love to experience it at a further ripened more piquant point but also love the fresh chèvre acidity combined with subtly developing notes of floral and nutty maturity.

As for that cider I mentioned, I would not recommend it with this Bonne Bouche. I knew they were not right for each other, but since I had both on hand they ended up together briefly. Second time around, I nibbled on an aromatic Brie-type that was the closest I could come to an authentic Camembert and found that the alternating of sips with slices helped me appreciate the cider.



I am quite inexperienced in the realm of ciders, especially traditional French styles and this unpasteurized version, Cidre Bouché by the Dupont Family Estate and its orchards in the Pays d'Auge region of Normandy, surprised me with the undeniable barnyard characteristics of its nose. The flavor contained deep cooked apple and savory leather that grew on me, especially when paired with that satisfying hunk of Brie. My sister preferred not to finish her glass, but I would like to keep tasting Normandy ciders in order to compare and contrast them and ever broaden my palate.

I have learned so much about cheese in the past year. Working at a fine cheese shop has done this for me, and yet every day at my job, whether conversing with customers, researching, or thumbing through one of Max McCalman's superb books, I am reminded how little I know. I hope to set aside a regular space in this blog in which we converse about a certain cheese.

As I appear more regularly again as a food blogger of sorts, I cannot help including the "of-sorts" portion. I love to food blog because I love to converse and share ideas and collaborate with others. Gastronomy is a very accessible arena, and yet I do not want to limit this space to this one topic. Food is one of many beauties in life that I desire to be ever grateful to enjoy with the ease and abundance I am able to. I want to savor other rich aspects of life within these white scrolling pages as well, so beyond recipes and favorite food and drink you can expect mentions of art, travel, relationships, and the many little details of life. Please lend your voice to my humble notations.

Posted on 16 February 2011 | 12:12 am

Artistic Pursuits

So, I have this thing. This thing many consider to be a gift. For years I've carried it at arm's length. A beautifully packaged present I have been afraid to claim or become too attached to, I struggle to own the title of artist. I have acted courageously in response from time to time, but just as frequently, my attitude has been of (ashamed) apathy.

Beautiful things stir me; I know I'm not the only one. There's something about a purple carrot cut into a round revealing a radiating white center, something about sunlight filtering through a curtain, something about little details of life that stir and capture me and send me longing for more. I want something bigger, something even more breath-taking. And so I go to canvas. I go to textured water-thirsty paper. I set my fingers to lettered computer keys.

I make these inadequate attempts to say something that expresses what my soul thinks it's trying to say, what it longs to voice. Oh, it's a wondrous thing when clarity comes. But, most of the time, it takes a hard persistent journey to reach that clarity, and there is the ever-wondering if it will show its peaceful face.

Here's one example of clarity that came. I was honored to be commissioned to paint a piece for a mere acquaintance. She was looking for a wedding present for her husband and out of their love for art and the collage of their own experiences together thus far, this idea came together.

The bride and I got together for coffee and she shared the subject that initially inspired this idea. It is a tree she and her groom have continued to come back to during significant moments in their relationship, so from that, we talked about other activities and ideas they mutually value. There are many details in this painting, so I will just choose a few main things to expand upon. First of all, while I loved the look of the tree and recognized the great value of its sentimentality, I had also immediately recognized this couples' desire for a rich, grounded base together. Thus, the roots became significant. In order to keep the tree a main component, I repeated it from another perspective as well. Secondly, the shape moving upward and across the canvas is that of a kayak, a popular activity for the two of them and a symbol of a new and hopeful journey. Lastly, the words "Love, Trust, Adventure" written across the top are words the bride had engraved inside her groom's ring as a surprise.



I finished this painting in July, and my easel has been mostly unoccupied since. I have two large paintings that need some reworking and polishing this coming year. I hope to make 2011 a year in which safe, arms-length-away living just isn't possible, especially in the arts. Especially in who I'm meant to be as an artist hungering after the Master Artist.

Posted on 30 November 2010 | 11:35 pm

A Great Fit of Wasted Energy

I entered into this fall season dragging my feet. In a sense, I willfully filled the soles of my shoes with lead and resisted the change with a great fit of wasted energy.

Even with all my struggling, the sun's face shied away. I lost my early morning running routine, late evening opportunities for dinner outside in a sun dress, and the satisfaction of a chilled glass of white wine. It had been a peaceful, enjoyable summer, and I did not want to let it go.

I am ashamed to admit that it took me until November to recognize my full resistance. It took this long to release my grudges against 7 a.m. darkness and limited access to fresh flowers. It took being startled by the season's own unique beauty to realize the blindness I had been living in.







In my longing, I had ignored the transitions and gifts of September and October, and all of a sudden, November was here. It came with a strong, striking posture and commanded attention through explosions of color. Even though half the trees had unburdened themselves of brittle leaves by the time my eyes chose to see, there were still mosaics of yellow, brown, pink, and orange across the sidewalks my feet cross daily, and some of the most brilliantly yellow and red trees are holding on. (My favorite scene is bright coral pink leaves reaching up toward a grey sky. I could live in this color combination.)





The season had to change, and just as fall is threatening to call itself winter, I am opening up my palms and willingly receiving. I don't run as much as I did during the summer, but I walk to and from work everyday, and those half hour segments of time in which I simply cannot hurry along slow me down and force me to reflect, think, articulate, and observe.

I'm finding winter ales to an excellent replacement for those glasses of white wine. I don't get as many evening dinners with my roommates, but our household gatherings are all the more precious when they spontaneously come about.

Little by little, I am seeing why I don't want to be anywhere but in this season right now. Some moments, the contentment is pure enough to nestle in -- the enjoyment of one day helping me look forward to tomorrow without wishing myself there too quickly.

So, winter, I anticipate your mittens and mulled wine and snowy pine branches. These are going to be lovely when they arrive, but I'll count and file away each mental and photographic image of autumn until the day to say goodbye comes. I intend to make it swifter, more gratitude-filled, and less selfish than the last transition. Until then, who's up for pumpkin pie?

Posted on 16 November 2010 | 10:23 am

Settling Here

I have been penning stories in my head. I have been scheming up paintings and drawings within my heart. Unceasingly, it seems.

Yet there has been a disconnect between the inner yearnings and the outer actions, and it is as if each opportunity passively let go adds more strength to the barrier. I am an artist. An aspiring creator. For months now, there has been little reflection of this in my life.

Midway through last month, in a fit of desperation, I found a scrap of paper in my purse and scribbled down the articulations trying to work themselves out in my mind. I was on the bus on the way to work, and it was a particularly important day in the calendar year of 2010. Forgive the melancholy. This was my honest heart on that day...

My favorite bus driver says, "Happy Saturday," with a generous smile, knowing today ends my work week. My automatic response is an enthusiastic "yes!" But as my smile fades and I find my seat, I'm reminded this day hasn't felt happy yet.

I woke up remembering that I didn't get this day -- September 18th -- last year. It passed me by as my jet flew a host of travelers across the Pacific to Auckland, New Zealand. And now my heart is all tangled. My throat hurts, and my shoulders feel heavy.

I want to want to be right where I'm at.

The window reveals grey sky over grey water cradling forested islands. A rain-drenched world from the long, wet night. I love these smells, these colors, these sensations. But I miss the thrill of being in a land where accents catch my ear, where currency is colorful, where ferns and tropics mix in abundance.

I miss it. And I want to let it go.

I am earnest in wanting to engage in this local life I'm living. I am here after all, and I remind myself that it is very much on purpose. I did not accidentally buy a plane ticket up to Seattle from L.A. after landing back in the States. I did not mistakenly wind up with all my suitcases of belongings in the closet of my mother's new home. And I did not just trivially sign a yearlong lease on a house.

As I get ready to publish this post, I look back over the past week and realize how little I have wished myself anywhere but right where I am at. I like these pavements my feet now find familiar. I like getting to run beneath golden trees and disrupt fallen pink, red, and orange-hued leaves. I have a new workplace, where my days and energy are consumed by helping others to cake, coffee, and a good glass of porto. I like these things.

My heart has spread wide across this world, and sometimes that makes it feel very thin. Tonight, however, I experience the luxurious fullness of all these memories sewn across continents. I'll settle here.





[Top: Breakfast of poached egg & Marmite on toast / Bottom: Cemetery on Lopez Island, WA]

Posted on 19 October 2010 | 10:45 pm

A Day Off

My weekends begin on Sundays, and I like to pretend that the fact that I get Mondays off while most other people head back to work, means my weekends are extra long. Sometimes it feels that way. Other times forty-eight hours feel like twenty-four.

Today was such a pleasant day off that I wanted to share snapshots of a bit of all I enjoyed. Simply having the leisure of pulling out my camera to freeze a moment kept a lightness within me.

The light of sunshine poured through the windows of our home as I pushed up screened opening to let in the declaration of summer.



Radishes on buttered bread with fleur de sel are my favorite summertime snack. I made them into lunch with the addition of this simple dish, subbing in fresh fava beans and mint from the pot on our front steps.



I just love the little details of this home. Especially the fresh flowers that rotate in each week from my roomie's parents' garden.









And then there's the joy of having an art corner of my own with easel and palette and tubes of paint to squeeze and smear. To have a spare room that is beautifully sunlit and accommodates my excessive art supplies is not something I take for granted. (Though, I was thinking, it would be nice if a mat cutting room came with it too...)



I had time to enjoy all these things as well as take a long walk along the gravel trails of a nearby park with towering, fully-green trees shading my way. There are so many cute old houses around here to keep me fascinated on exploratory walks through the neighborhood. And I love that two great grocery stores are just a jaunt away.

I was able to revel in all these things today and am now ending the day as the last orange light of the sun slips behind silhouetted evergreens beyond my living room window. Old favorites, Glen and Mar, softly sing through my speakers. Buttons on jeans hit the metal dryer walls. It won't be too late of a night, and I'll wake up rested for my early morning run tomorrow.

Even though life's current rhythm doesn't accommodate this blog very often, I appreciate you still hanging on and meeting me here now and then. Till the next mood strikes, the next recipe inspires, or the next painting completes itself (I'll definitely have something to share in that regard in a few weeks!)...

Posted on 18 July 2010 | 9:27 pm

Full-Bodied: Creativity Boot Camp

I've had to cut myself a lot of slack lately. There are so many things I want to do: organize my new room, hang art on my blank walls, get up early to run, stay up late to "be productive", finish books long drawn out, move on to new equally relevant ones. Between my hours of work, bus travel to and from, and the appointments in my planner, I'm being reminded that so often I set unrealistic time lines.

I know I am not the only one participating in Creativity Boot Camp with a million other things weighing on my mind. So, I read Madeline's guidance for each day and do what I can with each one and sometimes I get through the journal prompt, other days I pull out my camera for the word prompt, sometimes I do both, and some days I just carry the additional thoughts and awareness in my head.

I loved today's daily thoughts to heighten senses and simply savor each encounter with scent, sound, touch.

While my job does not revolve around artistic creativity, there are a lot of sensory elements that feed this aspect of my spirit. I touch cheese, I smell it, I taste it, and I describe each of these elements to my customers. Our primary "wine guy" stopped in this afternoon and poured me a glass of a white and a red and we swirled and inhaled and savored. These are the obvious elements of sensory engagement in my daily life.

In response to a few questions from Creativity Boot Camp, the most pleasant sensation I recall is in the nose of the Sauvignon Blanc. It was satisfaction alone.

The most memory-invoking was the experience of drinking my tea as I read the prompt for the day and sat at the table with my breakfast. I have a strong affection for hot milky black tea thanks to the four months I lived in Oxford in which I survived mainly on PG Tips and Digestives.

The heart-tugging sensory experience of seeing the sky transition from grey to purple to orange to pink drew me to the stone steps outside our door with camera in hand. I ditched the cliché photos I had snapped of a glass of Pinot Noir and hung onto the definition of full-bodied found at Merriam-Webster:

"Having importance, significance, or meaningfulness"

I looked at the house that has turned into a home in the last week and the sky that was my salvation when I lived in Abilene, TX, where natural beauty rarely amazed, much less surfaced. Since leaving West Texas I have seen many beautiful corners of the world and the contrast I know now makes encounters with beauty that much more beautiful.

Place is important to me, though I hold the term "home" loosely. I'm swift to attach it to geographical locations and particular bedroom walls, but I'm also lax to pick it up and move it along to new scenery when the time comes.

So, for as long as this place is appropriate to call home, I'm finding importance, significance, and meaning in inhabiting and enjoying it. I'm so grateful the sky follows us everywhere we go, and there will always be sunsets and sunrises and reminders through them of how striking beauty is to the soul.

Posted on 15 June 2010 | 9:41 pm

Fluid: Creativity Boot Camp

Yesterday's Boot Camp assignment was to create a work outside of our typical style, to embrace who we are but also stretch ourselves and perhaps stumble upon a fresh discovery of ourselves.

At first I struggled with how I could intentionally do this and with the question of what was outside the bounds of my self-imposed "rules" of creating that I could capture in the few hours I have after getting home from work at seven o'clock. So often my subject matter in photography is limited to food and still life details with wide aperture settings and swift shutter speeds. The first idea that came to mind was people - photographing people. I squirm at this idea more than so many others because I have strong opinions about the sort of people photos I do not like and very rarely succeed in capturing them how I do like. But, then, I rarely try.

I do not like people to feel uncomfortable or under scrutiny so my most successful shoots have been with friends who are already very comfortable in front of the camera. Children are great in this way, too. But I do not feel like I have mastered how to relax people who would not otherwise be at ease and this is where the discomfort and doubt of my abilities come into play.

I hoped to get some people shots yesterday if the opportunity worked itself out, but instead stumbled upon these more spontaneous shots on the ride home from the grocery store. I do not like to do sloppy work. I love that food and flowers and chairs do not move, so that I can get the negative just right and focus in just the way I want. Being in a moving car doesn't allow this to happen easily. So I threw my shutter wide open to a setting that caused it to slowly wink and ramped up the aperture to make sure the exposure stayed balanced.

It was a gorgeous day and the breeze felt good on my hair as the golden dusky sunlight soothed my skin. As my sister drove, I leaned out the window and sporadically snapped pictures of the upward view. They're nothing worthy of hanging in a gallery but they're outside of my norm and happen to incorporate fluid strokes, which is perfect because the word "fluid" was our theme for the day.

Posted on 12 June 2010 | 8:39 am

Grow: Creativity Boot Camp

I meant to get on board with this Creativity Boot Camp from day one, but the weekend got away from me and I forgot all about it until my run yesterday morning. By last night I had made it back around to the website and was determine to get down to business. And this is the best sort of "business" I've ever had to do. Yes, it is soul-digging but refreshing and rewarding and worthwhile.



The word for the day was "grow" and the journal prompt was listening to music of your past to conjure up those feelings of deep emotion experienced in younger years, at times of more naivety and/or rawness.

It was perfect timing for me to leap in. I am a music junkie.

I have assigned certain songs or bands to different stages of my life and places I have been. Damien Rice's O and Sixpence None the Richer's Divine Discontent epitomize my senior year of high school. Throw in Brandon Heath's "Small Town Flame" and certain pieces from Les Miserable that I mourned through on the piano and flute, and you have a girl with dreams but concerns about the world's safety in heart matters. Not just in love but in freedom and companionship and the purity of beauty.

To a degree I suppose I still have these ideas and wonderings but with a bit more seasoning. Time has proved both beautiful and tragic in the six years that have passed since I threw my cap in our little school gym and envisioned a life of independence.

I have laid claim to the self-titling of artist. I have trembled with paintbrush in hand, anxiety overwhelming; I have seen brushstrokes moving and colors inspiring beyond my humble inclinations. I have seen brothers marry, friends grow to near-family, and a dad walk out in a way that still sends reverberations. The music and the hope and the dreaming and the loving and the losing have all mixed together and clashed in varying degrees, and I'm left knowing that the best way to move on is to keep sowing beauty. To keep believing Beauty. To keep creating as I was created.

I was reminded of this by the draw to engage in this boot camp, and as I prepared today, one of my favorite bloggers emphasized the notion. A past entry of hers always brings me to tears over the innocent sincerity of this internal desire to re-create that so many of us bear.

I'm participating in this boot camp for me. Because my creative juices need a good, proper uncorking. It's been awfully dry around here. However, a blog is a shared space and I never mean for what I write to be purely selfishly focused. I hope the things I publish in the next week and a half bless and inspire you as I grow and am inspired.

Here's to growth. Here's to the little green fruit I discovered on our tree today in this new yard. It's the tree outside my new window, and I had no idea it was a fruit tree!

Posted on 10 June 2010 | 8:51 pm

This New Ol' Life

In all the new ways of life in an old place such as Bellingham, I am being reminded of the motivation and renewed energy that can come with change and of the opportunity to shed and refine bits of my old self. Surely, the opportunities are here, but the motivation only occasionally raises its head.

I'm not only needing to be intentional with digging into the darker inner parts of self but intentional in keeping a grasp on the little things that bring me joy: making art (this is a big joy-source), breathing fresh morning air when the world is still mostly silent, baking for others, cooking a meal that I'm excited to eat, and savoring the joy that lit my steps as I prepared to walk into my present job.

So many things to be grateful for in this day...

• An art project that led me to discover this beautiful tree at a quiet new-to-me park.
• Roommates to come home to.
• Bright and deeply green lush hillsides.
• New names to learn and hands to shake.
• Sunshine after yesterday's rain.
• Hot tea on cold hands.
• Music for just the right mood.
• The smell of a shop full of cheese.
• Squirmy dissatisfaction that signals shifts (for the better) must come.
  

Posted on 4 May 2010 | 9:15 pm

NZ: The Loose Ends

I've been thinking about New Zealand a lot this week. Not just the country as a whole or the way saying it tugs at my heart but the specific memories from my most recent residence there.

Finding a coffee shop to frequent in Bellingham reminds me of Caffe Massimo in Takapuna and the strength of their cappucino, which always came served with a familial wink from the owner.

Boarding a bus and seeing Bellingham from a whole other viewpoint reminds me of the rides across the Harbour Bridge into downtown and how I spent my last few trips trying to engrave that beloved skyline into my memory. It reminds me of giggling with high school girls as we headed to the shops or the beach and how beautiful those young ladies were (are). It urges me to seek out eye contact with the bus driver as I step off and make sure to send a "cheers" his way...but it's not the same here as there. And it would be dull if it was.

Changes have been stewing ever since I landed in Bellingham (much more permanently than I expected). I feel so grateful that, in the settling, newness and adventure still have created days of inner smiles as I squirm uncomfortably and/or excitedly. I still have reasons to take big gulps of air, to wonder about the unknown, and to be reminded that so much of what I picture isn't at all what comes to be. And that's for the better.

I'm seeking community once again and yet am in the unusual place of already have some automatic "ins". Family, for example. A few lasting friendships from those days when Bellingham really was a brand new place as well, when I was a (naturally) blonde nine-year-old with a lingering Kiwi lightness to the ends of my sentences. I'm grateful for what has lasted through so many years and for what is to come.

Before getting further into Bellingham life on this blog, though, I need to wrap up the loose ends from New Zealand. It will come more in pictures than words because there are just too many stories over the course of the three weeks my mum and sister and I spent traveling the north and south islands. Reunions with old friends are among the dearest moments. But swooping narrowly between peaks to land in Queenstown, cutting through water of the darkest teal as fjords framed the way for our voyage to the Tasman Sea, and slipping into the rhythm of left-side driving while leaning to the right and the left with each curve of road that took us around the Coromandel and through dense fern growth and alongside near-deserted white sand beaches, these experiences were priceless in their own right.


Road to Milford Sound I


Road to Milford Sound II


Milford Sound


New Zealand Flax


Our friends' llama


Ella and her chicken


Inside Christchurch Cathedral


Mum


At She Chocolat at Governor's Bay


On the Mount in Tauranga


Bush walk to Cathedral Cove


Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula


Elise


Northern beach along the Coromandel


Looking west across the Coromandel

Posted on 18 April 2010 | 9:32 pm