If a bread rises in the woods

I cannot count the ways you have stood by me through the ups and downs of these kitchens of mine. From the heights of the flourless chocolate cake to the depths of The Brisket. I cannot win them all, but I would if I could. For you. Because you have been so generous, allowing me to toddle about your screen this way and tell you both victorious and disappointing culinary yarns about anything I have on my mind. You have certainly seen me through some tough spots.
You have become used to it, I imagine; the rise of your hopes for me, the dashing of the dreams you harbored on my behalf (The sweet potato bread. The biscuits. The white bread.). It was a destructive and perplexing bread-making cycle: Choose a recipe. Execute carefully, ever so carefully. Realize defeat. Slam floured fist on bread board. Wash bread board. Retire to the wine cabinet sullen and cross and taking the name of the recipe writer in vain. Prank calling Acme Bread in Berkeley. Swearing off the stuff. Losing three pounds. And jumping right back on the bandwagon again as soon as someone said Vicksburg Tomato Sandwich (because that is what started this undertaking to begin with, it takes only homemade white bread and homemade mayonnaise and I am obsessed with this sandwich.).

But finally, your diligent chats with the powers of the universe have turned the tables for me. You must be so relieved. And here I sit grateful, but distracted. I am ridiculously charmed by a little bread recipe that has changed everything for me. In fact, I periodically wink at my bread while I am writing for you. Call me the Smitten Hostess.

Yes friends, I have arrived at my new blushing dawn. Yesterday, I was a person who could not make bread. Today, I am the woman who made this bread. I have not tried to play bridge, decorate a wedding cake, or re-tile my backsplash today, but I believe I could do these things. I want you remember three things about me if you hold nothing else in your memory: I read, I kneaded, I conquered. Brioche, look out you wiley coiffed muse, I am coming for you: The Blushing and Breadmaking Hostess.

Serve this bread warm, room temperature, or cold. Serve it in the morning. At lunch. In the evening. Serve it as toast or toast points. As sandwich bread, but never open-faced. Serve it to visiting dignitaries, luminaries, magicians, and kings. But whatever you do, serve it when your whole world is present, not when there is not a soul around to tell that you finally, joyously, grabbed that elusive rabbit and pulled him, gorgeous and worth all the hangovers, out of the hat once and for all. Pepperidge Farm, hear me roar.

Dream unrealized

You never know when, in the interest of national security, you are going to find yourself on your own. No, the President didn't call. But it was the government in general. The Navy, specifically, which took Josh off again just after we returned from a few days in Kansas.

Those were a few lovely days with our family, otherwise spent lecturing Josh on how whole my world would be if he would let me live on that little farm there. I could grow fruit and veggies to my heart's content. Write in a quiet place. Have the unmatched luxury of a child who plays with her cousins.

In my dreamy world there is lovely bread which leaps out of my own oven. Not some kind of Italian artisinal affair, but a good bread. I am not picky about what sort of bread even, just any good bread. But, like a failing magician doomed to play Reno forever, I never (and I mean never) can pull the proverbial bread rabbit out of the hat. I have tried for years and I am being frustratingly literal.

There is precious little good reason for these failures because I can use yeast well and fearlessly. I love the stuff and have never had it fall down on the job. I can make pizza dough and sweet rolls with neary a split second of self-doubt. No, yeast and the rising process are not the mystery. It is the texture which has eluded me always: In every kitchen, in pans, on baking stones, and with every sort of flour. The texture which has previously left its ragged scar on my kitchen confidence is a dense consistency which is too mealy for tea-sandwich bread and too heavy for, well, frankly, any other bread-like purpose. It has always been what I imagine wood glue would be like if it were leavened and baked, and has characteristically tasted just as lovely as wood glue surely does. For years, I have toiled and plodded in the bread-making without bread-maker arena without a loaf I could say came even remotely close to acceptable bread. Some, however, have been useful as teethers, others made very salty croutons, but most were worthy of one purpose only: compost.

Now we come to the most important part: I am not a quitter. Not when all the road signs are heavily against my reaching the end of the journey successfully, not when years of waste have gone into my stubbornness, not even when you beg me to stop, will I accept that I cannot get to where I want to go. Only sometimes, I have to take the whole sorry endeavor underground because my efforts have worn out their welcome among the kind people forced to eat my efforts. I am still determined to get there, I am just allowing other, absent people to assume I have finally thrown down my goal and accepted weekly trips to the bakery. Not so. Not, by a long shot.

Josh has gone off on a ship which literally takes many days to get where it is going. And it is still three days before my family arrives. For the moment, it is just my daughter and I, so, I am at it again: Bread recipes all over the kitchen table, flour in my hair. Single-visioned and unstoppable.

Unfortunately, this means there is nothing much to eat today. The baby is a bit of a gourmand herself and will tolerate, if need be, a bit of avocado and brown rice for lunch (now that she insists on feeding herself), followed by miniature slices of apple or sweet potato. But as far as feeding myself, I am up a creek without a picnic. When that happens while I am visiting Florida, the afore-mentioned infant and I will often be found at a very casual dockside seafood lunch spot which makes a shrimp sandwich no one should miss, though many do.

Just out of the way of most of the universe, by the shrimp boats tied up in historic Mayport harbor, is a gem of a seafood market called Safe Harbor (they do not have a website) which will grill a handful of marinated big fresh shrimp just off the boat. They place them on a roll with crisp iceberg lettuce, a very ripe tomato, a few slices of red onion, and a key lime butter which I think might also have a bit of Adobo in it. But I do not want to know for sure. And I will not try to recreate it for you. It would be all wrong: It should be by the water, with condiments in beer six-pack boxes. It should only be found near the shrimp fleets. It should always be a refuge, a safe harbor, if you will: From bread. From the internet. From everything.

Home before dinner

It never escapes my thoughts that any number of the readers of these essays are people like me: Their loved ones travel a great deal, sometimes for months or years. They are on their own as they dine. I look forward for them as I do for myself to a moment when their homes return to whole; when there are once again many faces at the table.

When our table flourishes anew because Josh is home, as it did early last week, I feel intact again. The kitchen and dinner service are the largest piece of what I know about families and gatherings. These times are so precious to me that before the business of war came into my life, I do not believe I realized people could or would be separated from the family table in civilized culture. My Mom and Dad, you see, always made it home for dinner, as did Chris and I. I don't remember that it was a rule, we always thought of it as a nice place to be.

Now I know the world is not geared to things so civilized as families eating together each night as I wanted to believe when I was a child: People have to go, and they do not get home before dinner. But when they do, when they are among us, we are thrilled and complete. We sit at a table in order to put ourselves back together. We eat because food is good for the body but sometimes far better for the soul.

This is an exhuberently large dish. The kind you make when your home is whole. Intact. Complete. The kind consumed as a snack over a few days after the inital serving. The kind that warms you because it reminds you of something simple and comforting: That we're all here now and hungry, thank Goodness.

Pulled Pork for a Whole Family
Serves 8
Boston, 2002

You will need the largest slow-cooker for this recipe. You do not have to reduce the sauce once
the shoulder is cooked but the sauce will be watery. The reduction makes a thick and vibrant bbq sauce, which every pulled pork needs.

1 - 6 pound pork shoulder (aka picnic shoulder)
2 yellow onions, peeled, ends trimmed, and cut into quarters
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup coffee
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup stock, beef preferrably, chicken if not
1 cup ketchup mixed with 1 tablespoon of water to thin
2 tablespoons hot sauce, more to taste
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons ancho chili powder
2 tablespoons dry mustard
1 tablespoon hot pepper flakes
2 teaspoons garlic powder
Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste

Plug in the slow cooker and set the dial to high. Wait a few minutes until the porcelin portion of the cooker feels hot to the touch. In the meantime, cut the pork from it's packaging and rinse well under warm water. Set aside.

In the porcelin basin of the slow cooker place all of the ingedients but the pork shoulder and stir gently for a few minutes until just warm enough for the brown sugar and ketchup to have dissolved into the mixture.

Place the pork shoulder into the mixture in the basin, skin side up. Cook on high for 6 hours, checking periodically after 5, and removing the meat when a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the shoulder registers 160 degrees. Remove the meat to a broad, high sided bowl or platter.

Into a medium saucepan, ladle liquid from the bottom of the slow cooker until you have 4 cups or so. Place the saucepan over medium heat and simmer until the liquid is noticeably thickened and reduced by half. Set aside.

With two forks, shred all the lean meat from the bone. Discard all fatty meat and bones. Pour the sauce reduction over the pulled pork and serve with mashed potatoes or rolls to make sandwiches.

Good for the soul

Good morning, pals.

So, we've come to Kansas to see our family here. How lucky we are to be part of a family this big, with so much remarkable strength, and an endless well of kindness and love. Eight years ago, when I came to Kansas for the first time, the experience I had here changed me in more ways than I can define for you in one moment.

I bring my daughter here when Josh is away, because these are her people and because what they instilled in my Husband and in turn our family, has made us solid and survivors as a unit. I want my little girl to understand not just what makes a family, but what makes them powerful together, and for one another.

Around the family table here there are a wealth of diverse talents and strengths: Engineers, mothers, teachers, athletes, care-givers, but most of all, you will find the best kind of humanitarians. When one hurts, all hurt. When one suceeds, all are in attendance. I remember vividly how extraordinary a gesture it was to see aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends at a sports game or an event for one another's children. They are there for church events and hobbies. But even more prominent than their liklihood to be there when there is something to cheer for, is their unflinching sharing and shouldering of each other's burdens: You will not go alone unless you choose to. You will not be judged. They don't need to say the words, but inplicit in their shoulder-to-shoulder commitment is an unspoken creed: Sit tight. The whole world is coming as fast as they can.

In the world in which I lived and worked prior to arriving here for the first time, this kind of thing was shamefully foreign (with the exception of one noteable group of people). When help was needed you could see people balancing a schedule and finances in their heads: Between hair appointments and parties do I have the time to run over and do that for you? Is there a way someone else could do it instead? Could I do it tomorrow? But this group will drop everything, at any time of day without a second thought to what they left behind or what it cost them; All they need to know is that you need a hand.

I imagine Cindy Burch is a lot like them, down in Waxahatchie, Texas. Springtime is the busiest of catering seasons, and surely the Dove's Nest must be solidly booked. But, the other day when I had a pile of avocados to use and the weather was warm enough to wish for a chilled soup, Cindy was kind enough to have both provided the Chilled Avocado Soup recipe in her cookbook, The Dove's Nest Restaurant Cookbook, but also to post it for you.

This recipe will serve you well though a multitude of hostessing scenarios, as will all of the Dove's Nest recipes. It will not take long to make, looks beautiful in the bowl, and is the best excuse yet to pull out the soup spoons gathering dust in the sideboard: good food, that's good for you.

It may also serve you well to know this soup will keep for a day or two in the fridge and retain it's color if you use the juice of one lime in the making. If you add only one cup of chicken stock, it also makes a lovely dip for vegetables, or a great new topping for huevos rancheros.

Fly away

So, you and I both know that it is time for me to go. As we wait on another airplane to yet another city, it occurs to me in how very many cities I have done this identical thing: Wait for a plane to take me to some other place. It makes me wonder if I will ever arrive at the last place, or ever feel a time has come when I can safely throw my suitcase out.

I am not this girl anymore: That swank New York fashionista who wore sunglasses on and off international flights, darting from gate to lounge. Talking on a cell as I was moving. Always telling someone else how to do something they should know how to do, or telling them where to go. I saw and missed much of the world on that ten year journey through space, time, and fashion. I worked for some remarkable houses and with some staggeringly brilliant business people. I worked and I flew and I worked some more. I would crash for twelve hours, fly again.

There were three suitcases always. One on each wall of our bedroom. The first was the big international suitcase (big deal suits and ritzy shoes). The second was for domestic short haul (pretty upscale trendy stuff), the third went home to Westchester with me on the weekends to see my family (Lily, jeans, and go-out clothes). And that was my entire life. You could put it in three bags and tell the entire abysmal story.

I once stepped from a plane in California to meet Lois. This debarking is memorable because I was deeply confused. "Did you know I was going to Korea?" I asked her. She laughed and said yes, it was on the itinerary I sent her. I had long before stopped going over the flights. If they happened, they happened. If they didn't, they would happen the next day. Nonetheless, the experience of landing in Seoul but expecting to be in San Francisco was an alarming one. I got to Lake Tahoe, but I began to realize the excitement and charm of the life had evaporated. Cities that others would wait a lifetime to see held little interest.

As a result of these past ten years I was and am interested in home. This is how I have come to be writing about the things that go on in a place many American's spend far less than half their day: the literal and figurative homefront. Both the one Josh came home to from the war, and the

place where we dwell as a family. And now you have made our homefront part of your lives and homes. I am so pleased, because you cannot imagine how very much joy there is in being able to be in our home on a Wednesday at 2 pm. For years, I wondered what the light was like in the places we lived during the day, because I was never there to see it.

I know the light now. And I know why I need to be here: Both to care for this home and family, and to share it with you. In the event that you needed to know you had company in me: A person who wondered about the light, and now a person who is here, both of these perches in life being quite significant and pivotal. And both of them requiring for survival the sense that one is not alone. You are not, rest assured.

I am pleased to tell you that the response to my keeping you company has been remarkably positive and so, the cooking will stay right here at The Blushing Hostess. But, bi-weekly entertaining and manners essays will move to The Blushing Hostess Entertains. I hope you will go to Google Reader and subscribe to both: That is the handiest piece of free blog software I could ever imagine, they track all of your favorites on one screen for you. What a gift.

Moving on to what you came for, I want to talk with you about stock. Until recently, I had some canned in the closet to augment the batches of homemade when the freezer went dry. Then the New York Times exposed the only decent canned stock as containing MSG, and that interlude is over. Now the stocks in this place are exclusively homemade, as are the glace and demi-glace. This all takes place in rotation and is well worth the (usually) little active time it requires.

There is a restaurant in San Francisco where Chef Judy Rogers, who was formerly at Chez Panisse, turns out a remarkable culinary product. After reading The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, I understand how she arrived at the heightened level of cuisine she has attained. Judy Rogers knows the difference between stocks made from various bone types. She has raised the bar from arguing over whether cooked or uncooked chicken is best. She requires the chicken butchered and sliced a certain way. A shoulder bone here. A pig's head there. A combination of chuck and a calf bone. She knows which one makes a stock brighter, and which one increases viscosity. And while many may know it, few can articulate it as accurately. Few can write it so that you think you might actually know what it tastes like too.

And few can get to the place this stock does. Certainly no canned broth. When the San Francisco Chronicle published this recipe, it was part of a price comparison between canned stocks and homemade. The Zuni stock below, they somehow determined, cost .60 more per cup than a canned stock. While it does not have a huge yield because it cooks down from only four quarts of fluid to start, I do wonder if there is very much difference today in the cost at all: Mine yielded a little over 2 quarts which would have been $5.60 in our store. The chicken I used was about $5.00, throw in some veggies, and I have a much better beginning for everything than I could get from a can. And that is what we all need, a great beginning. Let's hope for one for the Entertains blog, shall we?

Zuni Chicken Stock
Adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers in the San Francisco Chronicle
Makes 8-10 cups

One 5 1/2 pound chicken, preferably with neck and feet, or a smaller dressed chicken plus extra wings to equal 5 1/2 pound
About 4 quarts cold water
1 large carrot, peeled, in 2-inch chunks
1 celery rib, leaves removed, in 2-inch chunks
1 large onion, root end trimmed, peeled and quartered
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt

Remove the giblets from the chicken, if included. Don't remove the lump of fat you find inside the cavity; it will add flavor. Rinse the chicken. Cut the two breast halves off the carcass and reserve for another use. Slash the leg and thigh muscles to encourage the release of flavor. Cut off the feet and neck, if the bird has them.

Place the feet, neck and carcass in an 8- to 10-quart stockpot. Add the cold water. If it doesn't cover the chicken, don't add more. Instead, remove the chicken and cut off the legs and wings at the joints, then replace all the parts in the pot, arranging them so they sit low enough to be submerged.

Bring to a simmer over high heat and skim the foam. Stir the chicken under once just to allow the last of the foam to rise, then reduce the heat and skim the foam carefully, leaving behind any fat. Add the vegetables and salt and stir them under. Return to a gentle simmer and adjust the heat to maintain it. Cook without stirring until the broth has a rich, bright, chickeny flavor, about 4 hours.

Turn off the heat and let the stock settle for 1 minute, then pour through a wide strainer. Tipping the hot, heavy pot can be awkward. Start by ladling the stock into the strainer until the pot is light enough to lift and tip. For a clearer stock, restrain through a fine-mesh sieve. Cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate or freeze in freezer containers.