spontaneity becomes me?

(or not)

I'm a planner. I think I already established that at some point in this blog. I like schedules and structures and organizing and lists and writing lists of organized structures of schedules in my planner. How dorky is that? Anyway, that puts me firmly on the J (for judging. Not judgmental) side of the Myers-Briggs. As far as I can remember, I have always been this way. I have a lot of friends though on the P (for perceiving) side, and to be honest...I have always wanted to be a P. P's seem to have more fun. They're flexible, adaptable, and what I would call free-spirited, rules-be-damned sort of people. I have friends who can wake up, throw on any number of random items in their closet and look amazing, and bound out the door looking for adventure. I want that. I've been practicing, but it doesn't come naturally.

(spoiler: this is not the blog post of a reformed P. As if you could change your personality type...!)

Anyway, I royally failed at biscuit making the other day. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong, but I'm pretty angry at shortening right now for no apparent reason, so maybe that was the culprit. (Anyone reading this have a biscuit school? I'll come!) I looove biscuits, so this was disappointing. However, I was able to cheer myself up with the idea that I could just make biscuit pudding...like bread pudding, but with lame stale biscuits.

No, I couldn't. I made it all right, but it was not so good. I kind of wantonly threw some milk in a pot, some cinnamon in with that, tossed some things together...no measuring happened (problem #1). Problem #2: they were terrible, horrible, no good, very bad biscuits. Problem #3: it came out dry and completely not worth it.

But I found an antidote. Please don't hate me because I think it's better than Nutella.

Problem #4 is that the biscuit pudding went bad (I know, bad?!) before I got to photograph it. But all is not lost--I've found many other wonderful things to spread this dreamy stuff on like...

my morning English muffin! Yay for rule-breaking!

And then I decided to abandon all social practices and went running around in a valley of springtime wildflowers! It was so life-giving, so freeing and magical to soak up the orange and yellow around me and just be.

And then we (Damapie and me) got hot fudge chocolate chip cookie dough milkshakes.

And then my grammar police tendencies took over, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of this:

(It kills me. You are only allowed to butcher the English language, in my opinion, if you're doing it on purpose. And not at World Market...)

Does the randomness of this entry count as spontaneity? If so, I've achieved my purposes for today. If not...tack on a spontaneity class after biscuit school; I could use some help in both!

Are you a Myers-Briggs J or P? And do P people really have more fun? (If you don't subscribe to this school of thought, you are welcome to tell a funny story in your comment instead.)

love in the time of brownies

Here's how not to show somebody some love:

Sugarless chocolate cake, not as in it-has-synthetic-sweetener but as in I-forgot-to-add-any-sugar-to-this-cake period. Can you say brain fart? I pity the fool who has to find a creative way to get rid of it...oh wait, that would be me. Don't pity me; just help me find the garbage can.

There are lots of ways you can tell someone you love him/her apart from sugarless chocolate cake, and lots of ways people can give love to you (besides awful cake)! Kind words, spending time together, a thoughtful act of service...little gestures can add up in huge ways.

This year, I'm spelling out love a different way:

B-R-O-W-N-I-E-S. Heart shaped, to be specific.

Brownies were probably one of the first baking things I had attempted. Back in the day, they came straight from the box. And...I used to pass them off as homemade.

Gosh. It makes me blush just to think about it.

Why I feel the need to be confessional two posts in a row is anybody's guess, but I will promise you that I haven't done that in a long long time (the masquerade of box mix for homemade, not the confessional part. That I have to do all the time). A really long time. Promise.

Okay, enough with the emo. Can I tell you about these brownies? Pleeeeeease? These are no ordinary box brownies. For starters, all that gummy chewy texture is gone. Fake chocolate taste--none of that! These are all real, all chocolate, and if you remember to add sugar (please remember!)...just the right touch of sweet. A perfect manifestation of love, if it were possible to eat love. Oh, who am I kidding? I've eaten love. This, friends...this equals love in the time of brownies.

What spells love for you, in food form or otherwise?

Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies
(adapted from Donna Dooher of Food Network Canada (who knew this existed?!) but I found it via The Kitchn)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3 oz semi or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-process (I get mine at Peet's), sifted
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese (= half of an 8 oz. tub), softened
3 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325. Grease an 8x8 pan (I used heart silicone molds) (you could also bake them in a mini muffin pan for brownie bites! etc.)

Melt butter in a saucepan on the stove. Place chopped semi/bittersweet chocolate in a large bowl and pour the melted butter over it. Let it sit a bit, then stir until chocolate is melted. Sift in the sugar and cocoa powder. Beat in the mascarpone, eggs, and vanilla, stirring until smooth. Fold in the flour and salt.

Pour batter into pan of choice and smooth out the top. Bake 40-50 min (for 8x8 pan), 20-25 min (for regular sized cupcake-sized), less for mini or until toothpick inserted in center comes out mostly clean (a few crumbs sticking to it is fine).

(There's a ganache you can make to gild the lily (heat 6 tbp cream and 3 tbp butter until melted, pour over 6 oz. finely chopped chocolate and stir until melted; pour over cooled brownies) but I've never gotten that far...)

miscellaneous fun things: this weekend I learned that my loyalties can be easily procured with chicken and waffles! Wait, that's not really anything new.

Sammy's "love me" face.

official note: I've decided to try to get a post out every Sunday evening Monday? for consistency's sake. Perhaps more if the inspiration hits, but you can count on this, at least. I love my readers, by the way, and if you have any comments, suggestions, or inquisitions for me, let me know! Happy Valentine's Day!

the sweet smell of failure

I just screwed up big time. SO excited about this Chez Panisse apple tart I was making for tonight's post-Thanksgiving dinner, and everything just went wrong. So very wrong. The tart dough came out way too wet, far past the point of salvation, and I bought the wrong apples for baking (mushy instead of crisp) and so they wouldn't slice well, everything went to pieces, and I am so frustrated with myself.

Please don't think I'm foolish enough to try out new things on guests. Isn't that one of the fundamental rules of life, Thou shall not force one another to eat a first time product of yours (thine? thy?)? However, the last time I did try the apple tart was 2 years ago, when I was way worse at baking than I am now, so what's that all about?

In case you hadn't noticed, failure doesn't sit well with me. I am not one of those people who can laugh it off when things go awry and spontaneously create something magical on the spot. (Secretly I wish I could do this, but living in reality means telling the truth about myself.) I plan and I schedule and I measure; these are the things I do well, but they also leave little, if any, room for trust. And I want to trust, I really do. I want to put my trust in something higher, wider, deeper, taller, greater than myself. For me, this means praying for my soul to know as deeply as it can that there is a Plan, that someday I will get it a little bit more than I do today, that the process is beautiful.

To cheer us all up, some examples of things I've done right this fall:

mushroom, mozzarella, arugula frittata. Dreamy.

The contents of my September lunches. Assorted heirloom tomatoes, cubed mozzarella, basil.

Plain oatmeal cookies for Digsy.

one of THOSE days

About a minute after sliding the pumpkin muffins into the oven, I realized I had forgotten the baking soda. Dang it.....I was so excited too because I was a baking with pumpkin virgin, and I decided to just go big and roast a for real pumpkin instead of canned and THIS happened. Also burned my finger in the process. Just one of those days. It's time for Glee.