Food Porn XII

“COVID Cooking”

Enough already! I can’t eat any more and there’s no space in the freezer! And yet it seems wholly appropriate that in this tapsalteerie world, I have baked an(other) upside down cake.

It came after a crumble and two batches of cookies, and before a batch of muffins. The cookies were an experiment (plus I was bored with my tea treats): a basic cookie dough adapted for GF flour was riddled with chocolate chips and peanuts, and turned out so well that Ter and I had to do another batch to ensure the recipe would work with different add-ins. Baking is a science, after all. Chemical compounds can alter the outcome of the simplest recipe if you’re not careful. The white chocolate/cranberry dough baked up perfectly, but we’ve agreed it needs a hit of orange next time (and there will be a next time!) Maybe for Christmas, because now I have a zillion cookies to munch through. Ter isn’t a sweet fan, so I’m on my own.

The corona virus has taken us through rhubarb season. And what rhubarb! The stalks Ter’s brought from the grocery store have been two feet long, and she doesn’t skimp on the number of them, either. I’ve stewed it, roasted it, frozen it, and baked it into the aforementioned crumble. It also topped the bottom of the upside down cake, liberally dosed with chopped candied ginger and delicious with a scoop of Dulce de Leche Haagen-Daaz. Admittedly, the cake still tastes a little dusty from the GF flour. I haven’t figured out how to improve on that, but perhaps next time (and there will be a next time), I’ll put the ginger in the batter rather in than the under-topping.

The muffins were going to be “rhuberry”; that is, rhubarb and blueberry, until Ter confirmed my mental yellow alert and suggested that maybe blueberries wouldn’t be the best add-in for the rhubarb-based batter. “There are strawberries in the freezer, though,” she reminded me.

Problem solved ... you’d think.

Though whole when stirred into the batter, the strawberries melted in the oven, creating chasms in the final product. I popped a muffy from the pan and it promptly fell over on the cooling rack. They ended up topside down on the rack, which is actually more appealing than the right side up. The rhubarb compote I used in the wet ingredients has made for a weird grayish hue that cries to be hidden by some form of frosting. Maybe cream cheese?

I’m not the only one in the COVID baking groove, either. I don’t frequent the grocery store by any means, but each time I’ve accompanied Ter of late, the hunt for dark brown sugar has been futile. Flour, sugar and chocolate chips have surpassed bottled water and toilet paper as the hoarder’s supply of choice.

Just as well. I need time to consume what already exists before I crank up the hotbox once more.

maybe these have in fact been somewhat nibbled

Bibliography XIV

“The Starless Sea” – Erin Morgenstern

Beautiful imagery, enchanting vignettes, compelling story, too many twists and turns. I got lost three-quarters in and felt vaguely cheated at the end. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I expected too much—and yet the writing itself did not disappoint.

I confess, I was in a scattered state of mind when I read the book. In that respect, I disappointed myself. Still, the main storyline intercut with seemingly unrelated stories would have confused me anyway. Just as I fell into the rhythm of the protagonist’s tale, the momentum was interrupted with a story from another realm. Sensing that these unrelated fairy tales were relevant to the main theme, I trusted all would be revealed as I read deeper into the book. But in the end, I missed the point.

Don’t get me wrong. The writing is beautiful, as magical as in “The Night Circus”, but depending on the passage, there is either too much unnecessary information or not enough where necessary. I admire the author’s ability to put me in a scene where I can hear the merest whisper and smell the faintest trace of cinnamon, so I appreciated the experience of being there. I just don’t know why I was there in the first place.

Yes, I do. This is Erin Morgenstern’s second novel, and I loved her first so much that I’ve read it every Christmas since 2012. Eight years later, I still look forward to the annual delight. Expectations were high on this one; perhaps she felt the pressure and overcompensated. There is a lot of writing in this book. I think it could have been shorter and thus made more sense ... but perhaps, as I say, my expectations were too high. I just don’t know.

I will read a good book more than once. Sometimes it’s simply because I enjoyed it so much the first time. More often, it’s to get a better grip on the story itself. As with a movie, the first round is spent getting familiar with the characters, following the action and trying to predict the outcome rather than noticing nuances. Knowing how “The Starless Sea” ends (sort of), it may make more sense to me the second time.

Am I trying to avoid disliking a book I was so eager to read?

Maybe. I was so confused at the end that I couldn’t tell whether or not I liked it at all.

At least I’m willing to give it another try.