Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

The husband was in a celebratory mood. Maybe cuz it was sunny and cold outside and we’d had cheese omelets made with happy eggs and scallions. That combination always makes him happy. I was fairly un-moody myself and had a huge batch of granola going which always makes the house smell crisp and cinamonny when it’s baking. I had also decided it was time for biscotti, when Denis wandered into the kitchen to suggest we needed a special dinner tonight and me, being me did not say make it yourself, but that could have been what I wanted to say. I try to be careful and pure in heart. When I said an elongated whiny wellllll. Anita, being the sensitive discerning person she is suggested takeout, explaining I’m sure you weren’t really planning on being in the kitchen all day. I wasn’t. I timidly offered that rather than takeout today might be a good time for Denis to expand his cooking repertoire from waffles to waffles plus one other thing. He’s a very smart person and could do this if he put his mind to it. Imagine my delight when he grabbed the Mediterranean Cook book and found Ground Meat and Rice Balls in Lemon Sauce! The blessing of it! He even had to go to the store to get fresh mint and parsley. The smell of garlic and lemons wafting out of the kitchen is pretty enticing, but I’ll need to wait to find out for sure. He’s a pretty great guy even though right now he is also searching for a pasta recipe he once made years ago and I don’t know why he wants that. He thinks I threw it away because it is made entirely of butter, butter, butter and a few breadcrumbs and ground pecans. Maybe I did throw it out. I don’t remember.

I did make the following biscotti recipe which is a change from the usual almond chocolate whatever. They are a really wonderful treat, especially if you like concrete dipped in coffee. Pistachios cost the earth but they’re a little cheaper when you shell them yourself. Otoh, you have to factor in that whoever shells them may also eat a cup while doing the job.

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

¼ cup light olive oil

¾ cup sugar

2 t. vanilla

2 eggs

1 ¾ cup flour

¼ t. salt

1 t. baking powder

½ cup dried cranberries

1 cup pistachios

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Mix oil and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and gradually add to egg mixture. Work in cranberries and pistachios. Roll into two logs 2x12 inches. Dough will be sticky. Wet hands with cool water to handle more easily. Place on cookie sheet on parchment paper if you have it. Or lightly oil the pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until logs are light brown. Cool for 10 minutes. Cut diagonally into ¾ inch thick slices. Place back on the cookie sheet and back again for 10 minutes. I like them pretty rock-hard, so I turn them all over put them back in the oven for about another 10 – 15 minutes.

A Beaver’s miscalculation

 

My grandfather, Pete Frolander, was a carpenter, who built wooden boats, log cabins, and the kind of furniture you might find today in faux-rustic condos. With a dusting of sawdust on his cap and a pencil behind his ear, he smelled good to me – like pine trees and lake water. While he worked and I was a little girl underfoot and not interested in dolls, he allowed me to hammer nails into scrap lumber. When I was done he proudly displayed them in a corner of his shop the same way I now tape my grandchildren’s colored works of art on my refrigerator. My hours of pounding, bending nails, dinging up the board, no rhythm or pattern – just spikey works of juvenile miscalculation and effort.

I’m not sure why finding a large poplar tree felled toward the shore of Pike Fish Lake in Superior National Forest reminded me of him. Until I walked over to it, I assumed the wind had taken it down. As I examined it, I had a smack-the-forehead moment. There were incisor marks on the stump and piles of chips all around it. This was the work of a beaver. After looking at it I realized this rodent woodcutter had neglected to stand back and see that a picnic table was going to be very much in the way of his project. Still, I was impressed; it was almost a work of art.

I guess that’s when I thought of Grandpa who often said “Measure twice cut once.” There’ve been countless times when I thought I had everything measured and under control and pressed send or pulled the trigger only to learn, no, it wasn’t quite right. It all landed on the picnic table not in the water. But he also said to be a good carpenter you can’t be a perfectionist. You always need to be fudging, repurposing, working the angles, and saving this or that up as extra for another day. No longer being a child did not necessarily reduced the number of mistakes I made, which could be a downer until, and even to this day, I go ahead and remind myself that most of them are not cause for panic and they might even have an upside such as an increase in patience with both myself and my environment. More on this later. (I’ve been on vacation.)

Breathing

Yesterday was first full day of vacation at cabin on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Last night’s supper menu: Half a smoked whitefish. Rice crackers. Carrot sticks. I think I can top that tonight without too much strain.

All day I did nothing, unless absolutely necessary, like going to the bathroom. Didn’t make the bed or cook or wash a single dish all day. Denis did – not the cooking; the other stuff.  I did manage to fling the head with its sunken eyes, skins and fins attached down to the rocks at the water’s edge. We timed it to see how long before the gulls found it. They love carrion, you know. There wasn’t a single one in sight. 12 minutes. Five of them showed. today. Trying not to hurry much. Or at all. This morning saw a big buck lying in the woods just outside. His antlers were framed by bracken and tall grass. A bald eagle flew past the window. Nice.

Apple Puff Pancake

All night the wind rattled our windows and we could hear the last of the leaves ticking against the screens and whirling up the street. Hopefully the north wind will take them to another part of town. It was still chilly and blustery this morning. Just right for making an Apple Puff Pancake with some of the apples that have been languishing on the counter. Before I even dressed I peeled the apples and tossed them in a cast iron skillet with butter and brown sugar. Leaving the temp on low and the oven turned up, I ran upstairs to shower. When I came back they were starting to caramelize, but not fall apart. It only took about two minutes to mix the batter and pour over the apples. Another 20 minutes while I made a grocery list, put away dishes, and it was ready to pull out of the oven, crusty brown around the edges, little poofed hills and valleys across the center. It’s supposed to be two servings, but I divided it into thirds, (Denis, Anita and I)  we thanked God and ate it all. Great way to start the day. Hope renewed for all mankind. Okay. For here. For the moment.

Apple Puff Pancake in Cast Iron

(Serves 2-3)

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Melt 3 T. butter in cast iron skillet (I use my smaller 9 inch Dutch oven) Make sure the sides are oiled, too.

3 apples, peeled, sliced

¼ c. brown sugar

½ t. cinnamon

Stir together and cook on medium to low heat for 10-12 minutes or until the apples begin to soften and caramelize.

2 eggs

¾ cup milk

½ t. salt

1 T. sugar

¾ c. flour

Whisk eggs and milk. Add flour, sugar and salt and whisk just until smooth. Pour over apples and bake for 15-20 minutes or until top is puffy and edges are browned. If it doesn’t puff, it’s still yummy. Drizzle with a little maple syrup. 

Take this body

Today I had an hour between appointments so I stopped home before I went to 12^th Street Dental Clinic. It seemed a good idea when I set them up one after the other. Go to the surgeon get a few basal cells removed, no problem, then get over to the dentist. It wasn’t like I was getting a mastectomy, but the incision was a little larger than I expected. And having loaded needles stuck in your nose is not the little “pinch” they promise. Then came the yanking and hitting a squirter followed by the  smell of grilled flesh and what with the lidocaine not being quite enough, I left feeling more disheveled than usual. It wasn’t a big deal, of course, but it was starting to smart. I wanted to call my dentist and say I need to cancel, because I just had a basil cell carcinoma removed from my outside left nostril which would be like saying the dog ate my homework. The thought of the hygienist resting her vacuum pumps and tooth polishers on my face made me want to throw up. However, I can imagine dental people teaching you a lesson the next time you do show up, clinking their tools on your nerves and popping the drill under your tongue, so I actually drove over to the office to cancel. Luckily the stitches were still oozing and I hoped they would add credibility to my story. I’ll bet they think I’m a piece of work.

The stitches hitched up my left nostril so I look a little like Jack Nicholson with a sneer. Hoping it’s not permanent.

This timing of this is Providential, really. Possibly a tiny joke God has sent me. This weekend Denis and I will be at Zion Church in Lincoln, NB where we will each be speaking. My topic is body image and living with disfigurement, which is a serious matter. Offering my/our “our bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1) is a daily effort and grows more interesting by the year. That God desires not only our hearts and minds, but our bodies, too, is a compelling argument for accepting them as they are with all their imperfections and corruptions.

Toilets and apple tarts

Yesterday afternoon the dripping of the valve behind the toilet finally became serious enough for my husband to tackle it with tools and new parts. We’ve been placing plastic food containers and towels beneath the pipe coming out of the wall to catch the flow and they were no longer a match. Denis can tolerate a good deal of dripping, but when I asked if we needed to set the alarm to empty it during the night, it caused a flurry of twisting and pushing at the spigot. Magically, it quit only to resume in the morning. Denis is very gifted for explaining theology conundrums, mysterious doctrines of faith, you know, that sort of thing, including movie plots and camera angles. So as things go, plumbing problems and mechanical failures are not the happy friends they are to some.

When he called me in to help, he was on his knees, pads on, reaching under the base with a pliers and a wrench. There was a new part in the tank and I was supposed to hold it in place as he bolted it down from the outside. It kept slipping from my grasp and his, too. He was grunting and saying things under his breath a little. I think he was trying to hold the vocab down so that I wouldn’t point out this was character building or he should have read his Bible today. I kept that thought to myself. Good call, right? Instead, I decided right then I’d needed to make the apple tart recipe he’d seen in the latest Food & Wine and thrust in my face last night when we were in bed and I was trying to work a Sudoku. After a good deal of effort it seems like the toilet finally got fixed. Though we can’t be sure. He says we might be sitting on a bomb that will geyser up any second. I was thinking I’ve always wanted a bidet, but I believe it’s aiming the wrong direction. I didn’t mention that either. So we’ll see.

I did go down to the kitchen to use the Honey Golds that have been sitting on the counter for a few days. They turned out to be just right for this recipe. They are sweet, crisp and hold their shape when baked. The crust was supposed to chill in the fridge for at least an hour, but this was a pressing need, so I skipped that part. It took a little longer for me to make than a pie because you need to take the time to arrange the apple slices in concentric circles, and I’m not used to such preciseness. When complete with the edges folding casually over the top it looked quite beautiful. I hoped the result would be good. I kept checking on it, turned the oven down a bit because it looked like it was getting pretty brown on the bottom and I was anxious because there was a lot of liquid in the center from the apple juice, I left it in the oven longer. Gradually it thickened and by the time it came out and set for awhile, it was moist, but not sloppy. The crust was buttery and thick and flaky and crunchy. Denis happily munched his piece and said he’d like it again sometime. But I was the one swooning. I liked it so well that this morning I made a quick trip to the coffee shop to deliver two pieces to our favorite barista. To my dismay there were three people working, but Darcy said, oh, that’s okay, I’ll eat them both myself.

Yes ma'am

 

Pour a glass of wine and call the kids in to help you make supper and turn on the music. Elizabeth Mitchell has just released a new album for children: Sunny Day. I’ve often given earlier cds as baby gifts this one will be no exception. The acoustic simplicity and inclusion of little voices make it more than appealing - even for adults. Perfect! Go here where the Smithsonian has posted a free track and take a look at the music video  "John, The Rabbit."  (I can’t get it to load here.) Yes, ma’am.