I can’t feel a thing; all mournful petal storms are dancing inside the very private spring of my head.
Franz Kafka
Tags: Quoting
Pleased with the water…
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Happy Anniversary Mom and Daddy!
When I was in elementary school, I received a candle in a super cool Gemini tin for my birthday. Made in Japan for Colonial Candle, I still have it, but it now holds buttons. It had a delightful and unique scent, vanilla plus something mysterious and uplifting. One I searched for ages to find again, and had quite honestly given up on.
Then, last year, I stumbled upon birth date candles (birthdate.co), bought a bunch as gifts, and included one for myself. They are quite nice, burn a truly long time (60-80 hours!) with detailed descriptions of the personality of the day, which in most aspects is, quite honestly, on the nose.
The biggest surprise, however, was the scent. It is nearly identical to my scent memory of the childhood candle! So very weird and wonderful, and just a tad less vanilla. I guess it really is a Gemini thing?
Anyhoo, the candle is pictured amongst a nice table scape. Here’s to memory…
My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.
Alan Moore
Tags: Quoting
It is fresh fruit season, so what better reason to make cobbler! Above are two examples of my favorite recipe, which is below. Both used the same methodology, melting butter in the pan as the oven heats, adding the cobbler batter, then topping with fruit. The peaches, which you can see I shingled all over the top, prevented the batter from rising very much. Still delicious, however!
Fruit Cobbler
3 cups fruit at room temperature (frozen fruit will wreak all kinds of havoc)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspooon salt
3/4 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons butter
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. The original recipe called for an 8″ x 8″ inch pan, but mine is very shallow, so I use a slightly larger rectangle to accommodate. Place butter in whatever pan works best for you, and put in the oven to melt.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Stir in the milk, and mix until combined. Pour the batter over the melted butter. Distribute the fruit over the top. Bake until a tester comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Serve warm or cold. It is great any which way!
You might even like it with vanilla ice cream. Since I am a weirdo from way back, I have awful memories of ice cream oozing into a once perfect baked good and positively ruining it. They must always be served separately, never together.
Variations: add some ginger to the batter for peach, lemon zest for blueberry, a little almond extract for cherry. I sometimes substitute 1/4 cup of whey for the milk.
Chocolate croissant – I made enough to freeze, and we ate them with our coffee on the weekend over a few weeks. This time, I remembered to glaze it before baking, so it is prettier, too. I also love the deep mahogany color.
Orange chicken
Even though it isn’t actually citrus season, we had a pantry bereft of marmalade (tragedy!), and an abundance of grapefruits at the grocery. Also, how cute are the jars? If you’re looking, I found them on Amazon.
Greg and I have definitively decided it is our favorite marmalade flavor. Plus, it looks lovely on a cracker.
