A Mint Chocolate To Do

'This is what I do. I bake," I heard myself saying at a family-friendly cocktail party Saturday afternoon, waving my arm at the sideboard laden with the results of my cooking spree. Homemade cherry pie from farm fresh cherries and two kinds of brownies (mint and spiced).

It was self-deprecating, but true in the moment. I bake. I love to bake. I love to experiment with baking. The two brownie recipes spring from that. The self-deprecation, well that springs from a moment of forgetting. Z-Baby, someday this will happen to you too. You'll find yourself starting over, assuming a new role in your life (in my case, as your mom), and you'll forget for a second who you are, what you've done, what's inside.

But you'll remember again. Eventually.

Baking isn't the only thing I do or have done. I've been a politics and government reporter, flying in a seaplane during a storm to report on federal parks closing. I've been an arts writer and editor, interviewing stars and putting the paper to bed. I've been the publicist of a performing arts center, opening a concert hall. I've been a daughter, helping my mother go into a nursing home. I've been a wife, reading my husband's books. I've been a sister, supporting the birth of your cousin Maggie.

And now, I get to be your mom. And I bake. That's what I do. Along with a whole bunch of other things.

You're not old enough for solid foods yet, but when you are I expect you'll like my Out Of This World brownies. I suspect, if you take after your parents, that minty chocolate desserts of all types will rank up there for you. They do for us.

Out Of This World Brownies
Adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook
(makes 16 2-inch brownie squares)
1/2 cup butter
3 one ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate (I like 76% cocoa)
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup chocolate mint UFOs, chopped *

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter an 8 or 9 inch square pan.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a medium sized heavy pot, stirring every once in a while. Make sure the chocolate doesn't boil. While it melts, beat the eggs with a fork.

When the mix is melted, take the pot off the heat and add the sugar, vanilla and peppermint. Beat well. Add the eggs. Stir in the flour and mix until the batter is smooth. It should still be a little warm. Add the chocolate UFOS, stirring to mix in, but not to completely melt.

Pour batter into pan and bake for 20 minutes, until the brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let cool on the counter before taking brownies out with a metal spatula.

Because of the high chocolate content, it is best to serve them at room temperature or a little warm. Refrigeration hardens them.

Enjoy!


* I buy these at Trader Joe's. You can substitute chocolate mint chips or plain chocolate chips if necessary.

Unexpected Spice

Warm, sweet and tart with a hint of unexpected spice. Both my cumin-scented apple crisp and my best friend, Mary, can be described that way.

When I first became aware of Mary, I thought she was amazing. She's still amazing. Graceful, creative, with the classic looks of a '40s movie star, she fit in at the Chula Vista High School of the Creative and Performing Arts in a way that I never really did.

Coming in a semester late sophomore year, I always felt like the school charity case -- the kind of kid people take pity on because she tries so hard (poor thing). Getting cast as the understudy to the chorus in "Oklahoma" didn't help. Really, how low could you go.

Then, in my senior year, I had Ms. Hunt's production drama class. Shakespeare was the class topic. I remember Mary coming up to me after class and asking if I would be interested in being in a film she was making. She thought I'd be perfect as the lady who dies during a home invasion robbery only to haunt the thieves.

I was shocked and flattered that she thought to cast me. Of course I said yes. From the day of the filming on, we've been friends. (Her mom, Marti, has a great story about the first time I met her -- I was laying on her kitchen floor in a pool of Hershey's chocolate sauce, wearing her fluffy white bathrobe. Chocolate sauce looks like blood on film.)

Since then, we've been to Hawaii, Oregon and Rosarito together; stood up for each other at our respective weddings;seen each other through tough times and glad times; spent Thanksgivings in one another's presence and become one another's family. Mary has taught me the value of thank you notes (though I'm still bad at sending them) and set an example of what hard work and perseverance can bring. I feel privileged that she still believes in me, even when I sometimes don't believe in myself.

Her friendship has added spice to my life. The flavour would be less vibrant without her.

I think of apples when I think of Mary because the last time I went to Julian, California, I was on a road trip with her. Julian is apple country, a tiny town in the mountains above San Diego whose claim to fame is its orchards and apple pie.

When we were around 10 or 11, my sister Lara and I spent a long summer weekend at an orchard there owned by a Quaker couple, the Gaskills. Boulders jutted out of the yellow grass on their property. In the gray stone we found shallow indents made by the grinding of grain and acorns hundreds of years ago, a legacy of the Kumeyaay Indians.

Mr. Gaskill taught us how to pan for gold in the creek. We never found the real thing, though there was plenty of fool's gold flecking the mud we washed. The sweet tart taste of apple cider, the dry heat of summer in the hills. That I remember.

It was late fall, early winter when Mary and I went. We were both in college. Snow lightly fell as we walked around the town, looking at the historic buildings and reading of its history as a gold mining town. We ate at a diner in town, and Mary bought an apple pie to bring home to her mother.

Both of us still have the stone necklaces we bought to commemorate the journey. Mine is snowflake obsidian, white speckling the black polished surface. Mary's is by her writing desk.

I'm hoping she'll try this apple crisp recipe once her new kitchen is finished.

The recipe came about by mistake. I had a recipe for cardamon-scented pear crisp, but for some reason I didn't read the directions carefully. I added ground cumin, one of the spices in curry powder, instead of cardamon.

The pear crisp tasted good, but I thought I'd try it with apple. The apple worked even better. Something about the tart/sweet combination of apple and the spicy scent of the cumin just zings.

Cumin-Scented Apple Crisp
Adapted from The Moosewood Cookbook
(Makes 4-6 servings)
5 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 1/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a 9-inch square pan, combine the apples, lemon juice, white sugar and cumin. Toss well. Mix together the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl. Sprinkle the mix over the apple combination. Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes, until the top is browned and the fruit is bubbling a little around the edges.

This crisp tastes good no matter how you serve it, but I like it best warm with a dollop of 2% Greek yogurt on top. Creme fraiche would also work.

Enjoy!

Starting From Scratch

The sweet, creamy perfume of my grandfather's mango ice cream at the farm in India. The tender taste of tandoori chicken grilled on the patio in San Diego. Sauerbraten cooked, with help, by my mother as an homage to her German parents.

These recipes hold stories, memories of life past, of where I come from and who I am now. I've never wanted to write a memoir, but something about becoming a mother makes me want to share my life. So I'm taking my twists of fate and turning them into a twist of taste, combining tales with table.

Every other week, a new story and recipe will appear. Since so much of my life is caught up with new motherhood at the moment, my first recipe is a simple salad, healthy and easy to make in the few minutes I have when the baby isn't schmooking.

While I was pregnant with the Z-Baby, dramas I once found appealing suddenly lost their glamour. Violence on television and in films made me ill. Instead, I watched the Food Network. Seeing Giadia, Paula, Bobby, Ina and Alton mix, stir, fry, barbeque and bake nurtured me.

I learned how to chiffonade herbs, properly dice an onion and stir muffin batter (not too much or it will get heavy). This recipe is an homage to one done by Giada.

Shell Salad
Inspired by Giadia De Laurentis' Orecchiette with Mixed Greens
(makes 4-6 servings)
1/2 lb medium pasta shells
14 oz. can artichoke hearts, quartered
1 can sliced olives
10 sundried tomatoes (packed in oil), julienned
1 package spring mix salad
1/4 cup julienned basil
1 oz gorgonzola, crumbled
1 oz pecorino romano, shredded
the juice of 1 lemon
extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper

Cook the pasta shells according to directions. While the shells are cooking, combine the artichokes, olives, sundried tomatoes, spring mix salad, gorgonzola and basil in a large bowl. Dress with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Drain the pasta shells, reserving 1/2 cup of cooking liquid. Add the pasta, while hot, to the bowl along with the pecorino. Add cooking liquid. Mix well, wilting the greens. Sprinkle a touch of pecorino on top. Serve.

Eat this within a day of making. It will last one night in the refrigerator, but not two.

Enjoy!