Recently, I’ve taken to making wee little cakes filled with tart jam and vanilla cream whip. I call them Sunshine Cakes because they’re so bright and light, and because they make me happy. 

I made my first one for Easter.

No, wait. Actually my first one was the week before. I’d scored a container of leftover passion fruit curd from the diner so I built a cake around it: curd sandwiched between layers of hot milk sponge and then vanilla cream on the sides and top.

I ended up giving most of it away because, in the face of such tart and creamy lusciousness, I could not control myself.  

Then there was the Easter cake: two layers of hot milk sponge — this time baked in six-inch pans (and the third layer wrapped in plastic and stored for later) —  split in half and filled with tart red raspberry jam and vanilla cream whip. I iced the outside with the vanilla cream whip and then mixed in some of the berry jam for an ombre effect. 

A few days later I got some carrot-ginger curd and cinnamon whip from the diner, so ba-bam, another sunshine cake.

And then, most recently, I made a little cake with lemon whip between the layers (thanks, diner) and some blackberry jam.

A couple girlfriends and I met in a little grove of trees on the top of the world for a picnic — the cake was my contribution.

I’m really quite fond of my small cake pans. I like how a single layer, split in half, somehow manages to be a completely whole cake, easily serving six, and then a two-layer affair (like the Easter cake), while still dainty, can totally feed a small crowd. It’s kind of miraculous, really. In fact, if they’d have offered a dessert course at that big outdoor bash at Capernaum, these sunshine cakes would’ve come right after the loaves and fishes. 

Sunshine Cakes
Components gathered from my lemon cream cake recipe, and, for the red raspberry jam, from Chelsweets.

Sunshine cakes can be any size, but I like them small. I’m thinking of getting some four-inch pans for baby cakes, perfect for tea parties and coffee dates. Oh! And they’d make some pretty sweet doordrop gifts, too, don’t you think?

The vanilla cream holds up well on the cake but, over time, it begins to feel a little less light and whippy and more thick and cheesy. Which is still good! Just, different. If you want less cheesiness, cut the cream cheese by half — it will be less noticeable but will still stabilize the cream.

These are sweet cakes, so the tarter the jam, the better. Red raspberry is great (and is the recipe I’m going with here), as is lemon curd, passion fruit (be still my beating heart), and probably other fruits like rhubarb, and citruses like grapefruit and lime. 

for the hot milk sponge:
¾ cup milk
6 tablespoons butter
3 eggs
1½ cups sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla
1½ cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt

Put the milk and butter in a saucepan and heat until butter is melted. Remove from heat and add the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. 

Cream the eggs and sugar for about 5 minutes. Whisk in the warm milk mixture. Whisk in the dry ingredients.

Pour the batter into three greased, parchment-lined, 6-inch round cake pans — approximately 300 grams of batter in each. Bake the cakes at 325 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. Cool for ten minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. Cakes can be wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature for a couple days, or frozen. 

for the vanilla cream whip:
8 ounces cream cheese
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups whipping cream

Beat the first four ingredients together (if using a stand mixer, use the whip attachment) for a couple minutes. Turn the mixer to low and slowly pour in the whipping cream. Increase the speed and whip for about two more minutes or until stiff peaks form. Cover with plastic and chill until ready to use. This is best used the same day it is made, though if you must wait and it gets a little slumpy, you can rewhip it (I think).

for the red raspberry jam: 
4 cups frozen (or fresh) red raspberries 
¾ cups sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup cornstarch
½ cup water, divided

Put the berries and sugar into a saucepan, along with ¼ cup water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain the mixture, pressing on the berries with the back of a spoon so you get all the juice. Toss the seeds in the compost and pour the berry juice into a clean kettle. 

In a small bowl, stir together the cornstarch and remaining ¼ cup of water and then add to the berry juice along with the lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring steadily, until bubbly and thick. Cool to room temp before using. Note: this makes a thick, sliceable jam; if you want a runnier jam, reduce the cornstarch by 1-2 tablespoons.

for the assembly:
Slice cake layers in half with a serrated bread knife. Spread one layer with raspberry jam and then vanilla whip. Repeat layers as needed, ending with the final cake layer. Frost the sides and top with vanilla whip. Refrigerate to set. Once the cakes are cut, press plastic wrap up against the cut cake, but not over the top.

to create an ombre effect: 
Mix a little berry jam with some vanilla whip and frost the bottom half of the cake. Apply plain berry jam to the bottom, blending it in as you work your way up the cake. (If the berry jam is pretty solid, it will leave little specks/clumps in the frosting, as you can see in the photos above. I don’t mind — to me, it just looks like some seeds — but if you want it completely smooth you may either need to make a runnier jam or beat it back to its former, smooth sauciness.) Reapply fresh white vanilla cream whip toward the top, if needed. Pipe rosettes onto the top of the cake, or leave plain, or pile high with fresh berries or flowers. Whatever you want!

This same time, years previous: the coronavirus diaries: week six, the quotidian (4.15.19), gado-gado, right now, wrangling sheep, cheesy popcorn, crispy almonds, the qotidian (4.16.12), sundry tales.

A couple weeks ago the kids were discussing all the different cakes I’ve made, and my younger daughter said to me, “You’ve never made me a fancy cake.”*

“That’s because you never let her!” everyone shouted. (Which was true. She’s always had restrictions, like no buttercream, not this flavor or that texture, and no fondant, and my rules were that if I was going to do a fancy cake, then I had to have full creative license.)

“Okay,” she said, finally relenting. “This year you can make whatever kind of cake you want. Surprise me.”

Considering her love of chickens, it was pretty simple to figure out what kind of cake I’d make.

September 2022

But finding a cake to model after was a whole other matter. After a bit of digging, I found a five-minute clip of a youtube video — no instructions — that was most similar to what I had in mind, but it wasn’t much to go on. There was so much I didn’t know, like how much cake did I need to make? How much fondant? What kind of cutters? Paint colors? What size dowel rods? What about wire?

Over the course of several days, I made three different batches of cake (four, actually, because the first cake I made was too tender and I realized I needed a firmer, more dense cake that would hold up to carving) and a batch of vanilla fondant.

And then our fridge went out — cue 24 hours of chaos in which I didn’t know if I’d even be able to make the cake since I needed a large chunk of fridge space in which to store it. But then my husband ordered a new circuit board and got the fridge running by Sunday afternoon, whew. That night my husband helped me think through the construction and sketch out the various cuts (because geometry tangles my brain). 

And then it was Monday, aka The Day of the Cake. (The birthday dinner would be on Tuesday, and since I’d be working a full shift at the bakery that day, I just had one day in which to build the cake.) To say my stress levels were high would be an understatement. I spent the entire day in a focused, anxious tizz of sugary mayhem. 

I thawed the cakes, cut the pieces, and then dry stacked them and did the preliminary carving. I made the vanilla whip and the Italian meringue buttercream. I deconstructed the cakes and reassembled the pieces, this time sandwiching the lemon curd and vanilla whip between the layers.

And then, realizing that the cake layers were pretty thick, I deconstructed the cake again, split the layers in half, spread them with lemon curd, and then rebuilt it.

At this point, my younger son still had no idea what I was building. A race car? he guessed. A squirrel? 

Let’s see how long it takes you to figure it out, I said.

I dirty-iced it with the buttercream — Oh! A chicken! — and then I noticed that the butt and sides were too chunky, so I did some more carving and re-iced it. 

The cake properly iced, I popped it into the fridge and got to work on the fondant. I used leaf cutters for the lower feathers, flower petal molds for the middle feathers, and hand-cut skinny triangles for the neck feathers. 

At this point I got so absorbed and overwhelmed and sticky and covered with food coloring that I didn’t take a single photo. There were bits of fondant, cutting tools, and little dishes of gel colors mixed with vodka and paintbrushes scattered everywhere. And then when I got out the piping gel I discovered that — oh crap — it was so ancient it had discolored and I had to make a batch from scratch. (pant, pant)

Once the chicken was feathered, I settled in to paint, mixing colors, darkening, adding textures. It was both forgiving and gratifying. I sipped the latte my younger son fixed for me and dabbed and brushed the afternoon away. It was the best part. 

The tail feathers were a pain in the butt (ha). My son figured out how to adhere them to some wire, but we were running low on fondant and they were less than perfect. Plus, I stuck them in the rooster too far up on the back so it was far from anatomically correct, but oh well. This was a cake, not an actual bird. 

And what kind of fowl was it, anyway? I’d been aiming for a rooster but the tail feathers were pretty piddly compared to the real thing, and the body and neck looked more like a chicken, so: it’s a “poultry” cake, I decided. Whatever.

I stuck the cake in the fridge, taped a “do not open” sign to the door handles, scrubbed the kitchen floors, scarfed the pizza my husband picked up on his way home from work, and crawled into bed. 

When I got home from work the next afternoon, my younger son and I took the chicken cake out to visit its brethren, and to briefly bask in the sunshine atop the fence post.

Fast forward to the birthday dinner. All the presents were chicken related (a chicken necklace, solar lights for the coop, a chicken book, a chicken hat, a chicken mug) so everyone had a pretty good idea what the cake was gonna be. As per our custom, my brother’s family came over for the big reveal and everyone had to shut their eyes while I got the cake out (and my mother clucked and baw-bawked).

I made them sing Happy Birthday with their eyes closed — they could all open their eyes when we sang her name — and then, ta-da! 

All their reactions, and my daughter’s delight, made the work totally worthwhile. 

After we admired and discussed it for a bit, my daughter cut the cake. It actually didn’t look too bad inside, and it tasted better than I thought it would; the additional lemon curd had kinda absorbed into the cake making it taste all lemony, and because I was worried the cake would be dry and wanted to punch up the flavor profile, I served the cake with the leftover vanilla whip and a red raspberry sauce so tart it made my daughter-in-law gasp. Also tea and coffee. 

And now there’s a remaining feather-spiked hunk of chicken butt (that looks rather like a pineapple) in the fridge, as well as a severed chicken head reclining on a plate, staring at me with its beady little eyes every time I open the door. 

The end.

*Other fancy cakes: Game of Thrones Dragon Eggs, Snowboarder Mountain, Snake, The Wood Carver (my niece did much of this one)

This same time, years previous: red velvet cake, currently, Friday mishmash, the Chicoj coffee cooperative, leap year baby, potatoes and onions.

Look what just arrived in the mail!

One of the women in my writing group co-wrote a book, whoop! Congratulations, Shirley! Each time I see the book on my desk, I grin. It’s ridiculous how proud I am, like I helped birth a baby or something (even though I did hardly anything).

I knew she was sending me the book but I thought it was, oh, I don’t know, like a mock-up or something* (probably because I didn’t read her email closely enough … which is a problem I have; just ask my mom). I haven’t read the book yet, but I love its heft — the cover is gorgeous! — and the short chapters are enticing. I’m eager to dive in.

Actually, I lie. I have read parts of it since she shared chapters with our group — and my name’s in the book to prove it, squeee! — but a book in process is very different from the finished product, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t read any of the chapters that her co-author wrote.

I have a hunch it’s gonna be a fast, fun book and a great one to share with my grandparenty friends.

*Just checked Amazon and it won’t be ready until May 3 (so I did get a pre-sale book after all, ha!), but no worries: you can still preorder it now.

***

A few months ago when one of the cooks at the bakery made a tart-sweet passion fruit curd, I went nuts for it. “It’s just from a purée that I get at the international store,” she said, shrugging off my admiration. 

Apparently, one of the international stores in town (or maybe all of them? I have no idea) sells frozen bags of all kinds of fruit purée — mango, coconut, soursop, lime, blackberry, pineapple, etc — which doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but think about it for a minute: purée is just fresh fruit, but more accessible since there’s no peeling or juicing necessary. Just snap off a chunk (since the purée is frozen in thin rectangles, it’s easy to break apart and it thaws quickly) and pop it in the blender with yogurt and a banana for your smoothie, or simmer it with cornstarch and sugar for a fruit sauce, or cook it with egg yolks and butter for a curd to spread between layers of butter cake. 

mango curd and cream sunshine cake

I have a few bags in the freezer — passion fruit, mango, soursop* — and I plan to stock up on more soon. Summer is coming! 

*I used the soursop in smoothies last weekend. The fruit itself was disappointingly bland, but the gentle sweet flavor did bring back memories of my favorite (Guanábana) yogurt when we were in Nicaragua, so maybe that’s just how it is?

***

Check out this video about making Salers de Buron, a French cheese.

One of the people in my cheesemaking group shared the link with me (and then another friend told me this cheese was discussed on The Splendid Table podcast in an episode about saving rare foods). I find their cheesemaking methods — wooden barrels, salt on the calves’ backs — utterly bewitching, though I’m not sure how I feel about those unwashed teets….

***

Since my husband is super sensitive to smells, I very rarely use perfumes. (When I do, though, this one is the perfect blend of earthy, sexy, and exotic.) But then I discovered this gentle body mist.

My husband didn’t make any comments for weeks (months?) so it’s obviously not offensive, and a number of girlfriends have commented that I smell nice. (If I use it after my shower at night, I notice that my sheets smell like warm vanilla sugar cookies the next night.) So it’s just the thing: a light, sweet scent primarily for me that other people like, or don’t notice.

I’m on my second bottle. 

***

On the train to New York last month, I noticed a girl sitting across the aisle from me had a book resting in her lap. “Is that Crying in H-Mart?” I asked. She said yes, and I asked if she liked it — I had it on hold at the library I said. And then the guy sitting behind her stuck his head around the seat and said, “I read that book — it’s good!” And then the older gentleman sitting beside him intoned, “And so begins another Amtrak Book Club meeting.”

I’m enjoying the book so far. It’s all about food (HUGE bonus points) and I’m learning, retroactively, so much about that delicious meal we had in NY’s Koreatown. (Also, when I learned that the author’s mother had a “kimchi fridge” for her fermented foods, I felt seen.) 

Everyone says the book’s good as long as one doesn’t mind crying while reading, but I haven’t felt even a little bit sad and I’m nearing the end so either I haven’t reached the sad part yet or my heart’s a rock.

***

Have you seen After Life? It’s a British comedy-drama about a man struggling to go on after the death of his wife. My husband and I both loved it.

Even though it’s occasionally didactic and cliché and (disturbingly) crass, it gets away with it because there’s a rawness to it, and a simple beauty and warmth, that has me still thinking even months after I finished watching all three seasons. It’s not every day there’s a show that delves deep into grief and makes me laugh even as I tear up and makes my husband appreciate me more. (The woman [Kerry Godliman] who plays the wife is spectacular.)

This same time, years previous: how we homeschool: Jane, the quotidian (3.30.20), Asian slaw, for-real serious, the art of human rights, the quotidian (3.30.15), Good Friday fun, braided bread.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Eat the rainbow.

These crackers elicit strong opinions, from “salty wood chips” to “literally addictive.”

Teriyaki something-or-other in the making.

King cake in a bundt pan: negative 5 stars. (All the edges = painfully dry.)

So glad I stockpiled my ice cream base.

They say US folks consume 6.5# of butter/year: anyone else think that’s absurdly low?

Fozen sunshine.

He won’t make eye contact when he’s where he’s not supposed to be.

Hello, Pittsburgh!
^{photo credit: my sister-in-law}

Watercolor lessons from my aunt, and now I’m even more in awe of her skill.

Winter break workteam.

Imogene. (Catch the drama here.)

Again.
^{photo credit: my husband}

This same time, years previous: one drunk pig, banoffee pie, ricotta pancakes, I need new slippers – help!, launching, the quotidian (1.27.20), overnight baked oatmeal, vindication, women’s march on washington, through my lens: a wedding, the quotidian (1.27.14), and then we moved into a barn.

This year my niece turned 16 so I told her parents I’d like to surprise her by making a birthday cake. Yes, please, the parents said. (And then I learned from my mom that my niece was miffed at her parents for not letting her make her own cake, ha!) I fretted for weeks over the cake, trying to figure out what design, what flavors and fills, where to find models to learn from, how to make individual components, what special ingredients and tools I needed to order, etc, etc. Eventually I settled on a painter’s tableau, of sorts, modeled after her upstairs bedroom studio: I’d cake a painting and several accoutrements.

But I couldn’t find an exact cake to copy (as I had with the snake or the dragon eggs), so I was finally forced to accept the fact that I’d have to create the cake as I went. I’ve done this before and I hate it. The amount of brain energy that gets expended when I’m up to my eyeballs in Not Knowing What I’m Doing is all consuming. O the stress!

A couple weeks before Cake Delivery Day, I made a chocolate sheet cake (I’ve got a new recipe that I’m crushing on), and a half sheet pan of hot milk sponge that I saturated with lemon drizzle, and then I popped both in the freezer. (And then I made a second pan of hot milk lemon drizzle sponge because I still wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing and I didn’t want to come down to crunch time and have to halt production to bake more cakes, ya know?) I ordered stem wires for flowers. I watched YouTube videos on painting directly on buttercreams. I researched various buttercreams. I made a chocolate cremeux for the chocolate cake fill, and I made the raspberry and vanilla fills for the lemon cakes.

My niece’s birthday is on Christmas Day so I reserved all of the 23rd and 24th for assembly. And it’s a good thing I did, too, because I worked frenetically all day both days, barely even stopping to eat (which is not like me at all) or take photos!

The first day I shaped and assembled the cakes. This involved slicing the chocolate cake in strips and sandwiching them together with the chocolate cremeux.

I cut the two lemon sponges to make the painter’s palate, a pottery vase, and a mug, sandwiching the layers with the raspberry jelly and creamy vanilla whip, and I dirty iced all the cakes with Italian meringue buttercream.

I also made a Russian buttercream that didn’t turn out (because I went too far when neutralizing the creamy color with purple dye and turned it a greenish hue), I made a batch of fondant. 

Day Two my husband said my painter’s palette, which was modeled after the 11-inch microwave plate my niece uses for her real-life paint palette, looked like a hubcap so I cut the whole thing in half horizontally. Now parts of the cake were missing its raspberry fill and creamy whip and it still looked like a hubcap, but oh well. I cut the discarded bottom half into quarters, stacked them up with the raspberry and cream fills and slopped more cream whip on the outside for an extra “garbage” cake that they could eat later, if they wanted. I dyed fondant (this might’ve been the first day? can’t remember): blue for the vase, white for the mug, peachy-tan for the picture frame, and then I painted it all with gel colors mixed with vodka.

On Christmas Eve day I painted the actual painting: two peonies with leaves (that weren’t the correct kind but I didn’t care). I used just two colors — dark pink and green mixed with vodka. (Here’s where I got my inspiration.)

The palette didn’t end up looking very much like my niece’s palette, but painting on buttercream is an inexact science and good enough is good enough.

I made a batch of gum paste and a batch of gel paste for gluing things together (both recipes are at the bottom of this post), and then I spent hours tediously and very incorrectly making peony petals and leaves and paintbrushes.

The paintbrushes had a distinct Berenstain Bear vibe, I thought. (Also, phallic.)

The paintbrush holder was a mug modeled after one of the mugs in my niece’s studio. Since the one I was copying was missing its handle, I made gum paste handle nubbins, as well as the decorative jalapeño on its side. 

IN OTHER WORDS, I rolled, cut, painted, and glued for hours and then I declared it done.

The following day, several of us tensely and slooooowly drove the cakes over to the birthday girl’s house while she was out on a brief “remove her from the house” driving lesson. We arranged the cakes on the table, and then my sister-in-law called my brother to tell him it was safe to return.

I stayed long enough to see her reaction and take photos before skedaddling, but I later learned from other partygoes that they only ate the scrap cake that afternoon — they didn’t even cut into the actual cakes! — which made me laugh. 

(I have also since learned that all the cake has been consumed.)

Back home, I cut up the bits of leftover cake and slapped them together to make petit fours.

Newsflash: having bite-sized cakes always at the ready is a dangerous practice. Don’t get in the habit.

***

Gum Paste
Adapted from . . . I don’t remember!

Gum paste is a stiffer version of fondant, used to make all sorts of decorative shapes like flowers, fruit, people, paintbrushes, whatever.

I did not have any vegetable shortening; instead, I kneaded it thoroughly to soften it before using (and once I defrosted it in the microwave for a few seconds to speed it along). It worked fine.

450 grams confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons tylose powder
1 tablespoon meringue powder
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
½ teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon vegetable shortening

Sift together the first four ingredients into a bowl. Combine the syrup, water, and vanilla in a saucepan and heat until runny. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix thoroughly, kneading until combined. If the mixture is impossibly dry, add a little more water, a teaspoon at a time. Coat with a very light schmear of vegetable shortening. Wrap in plastic and store in the fridge. Allow the gum paste to rest overnight (or for a few hours) before using. 

Piping Gel
Adapted from Veena Azmanov

Piping gel is an edible “glue” that is used to adhere fondant to fondant, and fondant to cake.

½ tablespoon plain gelatin powder
½ tablespoon water
½ cup white corn syrup
½ teaspoon vanilla

Measure the gelatin and water into a small dish and soak for 2 minutes. Microwave briefly to soften. 

Add the gelatin to the corn syrup: the gelatin may be clumpy, so consider combining the gelatin with a small portion of the syrup to get it incorporated before adding the full amount of syrup. (A few gelatin clumps aren’t the end of the world, though — just mash them with a spoon, or remove them from the gel.) 

Heat the syrup and gelatin until it is runny and uniform. This takes just a minute or so, and it doesn’t get very hot — I heat it on the stove top, but the microwave would work, too. Stir in the vanilla. 

I don’t know how well the leftover gel paste will last — I’ve always tossed it after a project — but I’m currently storing some of the leftover gel from this project in the freezer, so we’ll see how that works.

This same time, years previous: she’s back!, what we ate, the quotidian (1.4.21), my new kitchen: the computer corner, Lebanese dried lemon tea, high-stakes hiking, Christmas cheese, five-grain porridge with apples, when cars dance,

My, what a gloomy day. The off-and-on pouring rain is something else. (Whenever it increases to a heavy roar, and then stays at that level, I’m reminded of Hurricane Mitch — how the rain thundered on the tile roof of our little adobe house in northern Nicaragua for four days straight, so steady and oppressive, so loud.) But hey, it’s Friday and I’ve got cookies, so cheer up, folks!

These are immediate must-make cookies. I came across the recipe one day and made them the next — a double batch. (I had a feeling.) That same afternoon, I sent some over to my parents with my daughter, and then my mother called me with her mouth still full. What are these? They’re amazing! Send me the recipe.

This morning I had one with my coffee. My husband had one, too. And then he had another.

Now, mid-morning, the cake plate has been emptied [brushes crumbs from lips] and restocked with the cookies I’d foolishly thought I would squirrel away in the freezer. 

I fully expect the plate to be empty by bedtime. 

Jammy Crumble Cookies
Adapted from Dinner With Julie.

I made mine with red raspberry jam but I think fruit preserves (thick jam sauce made without the addition of pectin and often with slightly less sugar, like in this red raspberry sauce) might be even better. How about fig? Black raspberry? Spiced apple pie filling? A berry blend? You get the idea.

I strongly recommend doubling the recipe.

for the cookie:
½ cup butter
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
1 egg yolk
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugars. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla. Mix in the flour and salt.

for the crumble:
¼ cup oats, any kind
¼ cup flour
¼ cup pecans
¼ cup coconut
¼ cup brown sugar
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons butter

Put all the ingredients in the food processor and pulse until crumbly. 

to assemble:
the butter dough
the crumb topping
½ cup jam

Divide the butter dough into 12 balls. Place each ball in a well-greased muffin tin and press it down in the center with your fingers; the “dip” needs to be large enough to hold at least 1 teaspoon of jam.

Fill the “dips” with jam and generously spoon the crumbs on the outside edges of the cookies, leaving a space in the center for the jam to peak through. Really pile it on.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Let them cool for 10-20 minutes before running a knife around the edge and carefully coaxing each cookie from its cup.

These store well at room temperature, and they can be frozen as well (but don’t bother).

This same time, years previous: six fun things, introducing how we homeschool: a series, what we ate, of mice and men and other matters, unleashing the curls!, George Washington Carver sweet potato soup with peanut butter and ginger, butternut squash galette with caramelized onions and goat cheese, the quotidian (11.11.13), pumpkin cranberry cream cheese muffins.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Ribbons of sunshine.

Flour tortillas, with einkorn and sourdough.

YOU try pouring a three-gallon bowl of milk into a pitcher.

Meat pie in an einkorn pastry crust.

Ricotta cake: in development.

Lunch.

Old apples, freezer-burned rhubarb, and wine berries makes for one heck of a fruit crisp, FYI.

Home studio.

Honey bee latte, with a touch of sweet whimsey.

Cuddlebugs.

The choristers.

She had a solo (well, a duet) and didn’t tell anyone except me.

This same time, years previous: both ends, it takes a village, in the night air, the quotidian (4.18.16), cheesy popcorn, joining the club, fun and fiasco: chapter three, picking us up, it just kind of happened.

From other people’s stories, I’d known there was a good chance I’d get sick from my second shot, so I planned accordingly. I scheduled my week with a couple free days in which to recuperate, and the morning of, I washed my hair, shaved, and painted my toe nails. It’d been over a year since I’d last been sick and I wanted to look my best for my potential date with Misery.

The shot itself was a lovely, no stress affair, and all the rest of the day I felt great. On the way to the vaccine clinic, I’d stopped at a dollar store for ginger ale and crackers and now I worried I’d have a six-pack of ginger ale going flat in the pantry for the next year.  

But then.

Around one in the morning — almost exactly ten hours from when I’d gotten the shot — I woke up with fevers and chills (a phrase which sounds almost cozy, like “berries and cream” or “milk and cookies,” but was anything but). I could feel the fever rising, the heat radiating out from my core, my teeth rattling.  

Complicating matters, I’d tweaked my shoulder and neck getting dressed on Saturday (I know, I’m pathetic) and had been operating like a stiff, bent-over owl ever since. Now, my muscles rigid and sore from the fever, my shoulder and neck pain intensified. Finding a comfortable, restful position was impossible. 

ALSO, my arm hurt like the dickens. I’d thought it’d been sore the first time around, but this time I was only able to move it mere inches without pain. All night I cradled my useless appendage against my body and worried that I was going to give myself a frozen shoulder from lack of use. (Because I am rational when sick.)

Even with a steady diet of Tylenol and ginger ale, the fever didn’t let up, and the next day when my older son informed me that I was overdosing on Tylenol (oops), I went cold turkey, and then when I talked to him again he said I’d misunderstood him and that it was fine to continue the Tylenol and that I could alternate it with Ibuprofen, too. Apparently, when I get a fever, I lose my hearing.

I also had a crushing headache and bone-weary fatigue. Just mustering the energy to go to the bathroom took ages.

“Over the next few days, you might experience mild side effects” is what it said in the follow-up email I got from the vaccination clinic. 

Ha. Hahahahaha. Clearly someone does not understand the meaning of “mild.” Here, let me help. 

Mild side effects are when you have a mysterious low grade headache and then a day later you remember that Oh yeah, I had a vaccine yesterday so that’s why I feel bad. BEING KNOCKED FLAT BY A RAGING FEVER FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, on the other hand, IS NOT MILD. It might be expected. It might be acceptable. But mild? No. 

If I hadn’t known any better, I might’ve thought I’d been injected with an honest-to-goodness case of Covid. 

(I still wondered….)

Sweet boy made me a breakfast that I declined (and he then ate).

In bed, miserable and aching, I marveled at the lengths I’d go for the sake of not getting sick with Covid, or not getting someone else sick. For the first time in this whole blasted pandemic, I felt like I was actually sacrificing for a greater cause. 

It’s only gonna last twelve hours, I told myself (because that’s about how long it’d been for my older son). Soon it’ll be over. 

But that evening I was still solidly miserable — I am not a pleasant sick person — and yet I knew I shouldn’t complain. Getting this vaccine was such a gift, and I was grateful beyond measure to get it. 

(I still complained.)

I slept fairly well that night and by the next day I was much improved. My body temp still had trouble regulating itself for the first few hours (I kept on-and-off sweating), and my head hurt (but now the painkillers worked), and I moved slowly, but I was vertical! 

I made coffee, glorious coffee, and drank it out on the deck, marveling at the warm weather and the birds and sunshine and how lovely it was to no longer feel like I was dying. 

And then my brain exploded. 

Suddenly I wanted to do all the things. I wanted to make something Italian and bake muffins and plan all the meals for the next week and also make all of them right now, and I wanted to get more house plants and paint a picture (huh?) and squeeze the calf out of Daisy so I could make creme fresh and yogurt and clotted cream and oh, I’d need scones to go with the cream and what about that blueberry muffin cake I just read about? and chicken meatballs! and am I actually out of frozen spinach? gotta write that down. 

It was like I had a caffeine buzz times ten. Suddenly, I’d unleashed — or tapped into — a huge reserve of creativity and energy. (Was this what people felt like when they get high? I wondered. Because if so, I can understand the draw.) Are other people getting this vaccine buzz? Step one, get sick. Step two, get better. Step three, fly high. 

Or maybe feeling like you can single-handedly take on the world is one of side effects?

Questions I Have

• Why do some people get sick from the vaccine and others don’t? My son theorizes that a stronger reaction means there’s a stronger immune system, but I don’t know if that’s true. (Oh wait — maybe?)
• Does the neanderthal gene have any effect on how a person handles the vaccine?
• Do people who have had Covid still have a reaction to the vaccine? 
• And what about all the people who were Covid-positive but asymptomatic? Does that have any effect on their reaction to the vaccine?

Oh, hang on. I just found some science.

My husband had his second vaccine the day after me. He had a touch of a headache but otherwise felt fine, lucky dog.* My younger daughter gets her second vaccine next week, and my older daughter got her first vaccine this weekend. Soon, there might be a vaccine for my younger son.

One by one….

***

*I spoke too soon:

Thirty hours in, after working (albeit slower and slower and slower, according to my son) for 8 hours, Lucky Dog bites the dust.

This same time, years previous: the coronavirus diaries: week five, the quotidian (4.8.19), missing Alice, fifteenth spring, yellow cake, this slow, wet day, writing it out, coming of age.

Thus far, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to be able to see family and friends in the relative safety of the great outdoors, but now with the cold creeping in and the dark evenings, our social engagements are becoming even more limited so I’m bracing myself. Emotionally hunkering down. Gearing up for going nowhere. 

Looks like it’s just us, now. 

I still try to go running. I have my job which gets me out of the house a couple days a week. I have a phone that I use to call up my mother and chat. I go on walks with my sister-in-law and girlfriends, and by myself.

Still, I can feel myself beginning to slump. There’s a heaviness tugging at me.

Maybe I should just go on antidepressants for the next year or so, I say to my husband. 

Actually, what I say is “for the next ten years.” Might as well knock out the misery of the pandemic, menopause, and the switch to an empty nest all in one fell swoop.

The other day in the car, I caught snatches of a report on the 1918 pandemic: people ages 20-40 were, surprisingly, the ones most likely to die . . . the economic hardships were enormous since there weren’t any social services in place . . . the flu took out lots of people who were already weakened by tuberculosis . . . afterward, a wave of depression swept the country. 

The show’s guest said something else that stuck with me. In regards to a health crisis, we in the United States vacillate between panic and complacency. For years we’ve known what we need to do in order to prepare for a global health crisis, but we haven’t done it. Now we’re panicked, and once this is over, we’ll probably return to complacency because that’s what we do. 

The guest sounded angry. And tired.

Any good news? The host asked hopefully. There was a pause, and then: 

Humans are survivors. Many of us have died, and many of us who are here now will not be here when this is over, but we are survivors. 

The race will go on. 

As 2020 ends, I find myself thinking back. 

I think back to March when we were advised against wearing masks and am appalled.

I think back to January when I first began hearing rumors of a new virus that was being discovered in China. Oh, it’s nothing, I’d said. They’ve had other viruses over there and they didn’t effect us any. The news industry just needs something to report. It’ll be fine. 

It’s hard to believe that once upon a time that’s what I thought.  

Out on a walk, I entertain myself by posing a question: If I’d get COVID, which lingering side effect would I rather have — loss of taste or ongoing respiratory problems? 

One person I know is still struggling, nine months after first getting sick, with debilitating respiratory issues. Another person has lost her sense of taste. For her, food is important, so to lose her sense of taste (and then have it return only to disappear yet again) leaves her in a distressing state of uncertainty. 

To no longer be able to move about energetically — to go for runs or pound up the stairs to my bedroom or steam through a grocery store — would be horrible. And to no longer taste — peanut butter! lemony broccoli! sourdough! spicy sausages! coffee, coffee! — is a loss I can’t even imagine. 

After mulling the question over, I finally give up, still undecided. Both choices are terrible. 

That I could die is something I don’t even consider. 

Every time the weather gets even a hint of warm, I get squirrely. Gotta go for a walk. Gotta call friends. Gotta have someone over. Gotta go somewhere. If I don’t use the brief little window of opportunity to socialize and exercise, I feel guilty. 

So a couple weeks ago when the entire weekend forecast was for sunshine and warm temps, I announced a family hike. And then I invited friends, because what better way to visit than while tromping for hours through the woods? 

After an hour or so, we had to decide whether or not to do a small loop or a large. We’re already out here, I said, all vim and vigor. Might as well go all out. 

And so we hiked. And hiked and hiked and hiked, through muddy trails and up rocky mountains (when choosing the eleven-mile loop, we neglected to consider the topography, oops) and over boulders and across streams. 

That night, I feel asleep fast and slept hard. It was marvelous — the best kind of tired ever.  

I love our traditional stay-at-home Christmases: stockings for the kids, cookies for breakfast, my husband’s ham, puzzles and games. 

But that at-homeness is fun specifically because it is sandwiched between a whole lotta church, family gatherings, and parties. Now that it’s us all of the time, it feels like Christmas will be just more of the same. 

We don’t really have good ideas to make it special — and, quite frankly, I’m not sure I even want “specialness substitutes” because anything we do will just accentuate what’s missing — but we’re trying. Here’s what we’ve come up with.

Books: I did some research and then checked out a bunch of good read-alouds from the library. My goal is to read out loud about three times a day — we are gonna plow through the books. 

No studies: I canceled the kids’ studies, though I am increasing their assigned readings, and there will still be history lessons with my husband, and maybe science and typing lessons with the grandparents. But no spelling and math!

Documentaries: My husband suggested we watch documentaries, so now I need to do some research to find a bunch of good ones to add to my queue. 

Relaxing: I want to set up a puzzle and drink more tea. Card games, maybe.

Soup: I’m craving soups — the kinds that are brothy and loaded with leafy greens — so I’m gonna make us some.

Outings: There may be a couple small day road trips, and perhaps another hike or two. 

House projects: I’d like to find an area rug for the sitting area. We need to send off the Cutco knives to get sharpened. Little things like that.

These are small pleasures, and even though the persistant piercing sadness sometimes makes it hard to appreciate them and keep my equilibrium, they’ll be enough. 

They have to be. 

These days, instead of reading the serious books and watching the hard movies — the things I routinely try to do to educate and better myself — I’m choosing easy material, the heartwarming and familiar and funny. So what am I reading? Juvenile fiction, I kid you not. (Also, The Warmth of Other Suns because I already started it.)

The other night the girls and I finished Schitt’s Creek. I cried, of course. Reaching the end of an incredibly wonderful show is so bittersweet. But all is not lost! I’m on season four with my husband — he’s getting into it, whoop! — and so I get to watch it all again, with him. (By myself I’m watching The Crown. With the family, The Great British Baking Show. And recent family night movies include Prom and The Sound of Metal.)

Two nights in a row last week, I fell asleep at eight o’clock, the warmth of the fire so deeply relaxing that I felt like my whole body had fused to the sofa. One day I stayed in my pajamas all day long. 

Mornings it’s so windy and bitter cold that I simply can’t bear the thought of going running, I don’t. Because maybe what I need is a cozy, dark morning inside the house with slippers and coffee and candles, and that’s okay.

To get through these long, dark, cold winter months, what I want — what I need — is lightness and laughter and comfort. Once the daylight and warmth return, then I’ll push myself again.

For now, though, I go easy. 

This same time, years previous: old-fashioned sour cream cake doughnuts, the quotidian (12.22.14), marshmallows.

Yesterday afternoon, after sleeping on the sofa off and on for two hours, I needed to get out. Since it would soon be time to pick up my younger daughter from her job, I decided to first run into town for milk and a few other staples (which included cranberry cocktail for this drink) and then swing by the farm. If she was still working, I’d go for a walk there. It’d be a nice change of scenary from my regular routes.

By the time I arrived she was almost done, so instead of going on a walk, I explored the farm, poking my head in the different hoop houses to see what they had growing.

My daughter was in the tomato hoop house.

She was tying nylon twine to the poles running along the top of the house and then stringing them down, one beside each plant, and staking them into the ground. There are about 80 plants per row, my daughter told me; she’d been doing this for a long time.

When she first started working at the farm a few weeks back, I wasn’t sure she’d last. That first day, she was cold in the morning, hot in the afternoon, didn’t have enough to eat, got thirsty, and was, by the end, totally exhausted.

Listening to her fuss, I panicked a little. She’d initiated this job, contacting the owner to ask for a job, getting the references he requested, and setting her hours. After all that, just to quit? We wouldn’t let her, at least not right off the bat, but forcing her to keep working would be miserable, too. Internally, I braced for battle.

But that first day must’ve been a fluke. From then on, there’s been no complaining. In fact, she loves going to work.

I’m not sure why, really. Mostly alone (there are other workers, but they’re often not in close enough proximity for conversation) for hours on end, doing the same task over and over again, I’d think she’d die of boredom. But no. Instead, she’s quietly proud. She comes home tired, satisfied, and eager to hand me whatever gleanings she’s scored — a bag of spinach, a handful of carrots (they’re so sweet, Mom!), some radishes, a bouquet of flowers.

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter secured a few more tomato plant ties before calling it quits. While she cleaned up her tools and closed up the hoop house, I mozied along the trail by the creek, the warm sunshine and the burbling water lulling me into a sort of stupor. It’d be the perfect spot for an afternoon nap, I realized. If only they had hammocks….

Before we left, my daughter picked a little lettuce for a weekend salad. In the car, she guzzled water and scarfed the tail end of her lunch before we set out for home, with her driving.

This same time, years previous: kickboxing, caribbean milk cake, the quotidian (4.3.17), the quotidian (4.4.16), red raspberry pie, sun days, the quotidian (4.2.12), cup cheese, now.

I’ve been on a bit of a bagel bender. I made some for us to eat, and then I made a couple batches for the soiree, and now I’m back to making them just for us again. No one’s complaining.

As per my custom, I used my no-fail recipe for sourdough bagels, but then I decided to try egg bagels. Egg bagels are my absolute favorite (or everything egg bagels, to be precise): sunshine yellow and tender soft, with a most deliciously satisfying chewiness.

So I found a recipe for egg bagels that called for eight yolks, which — lucky me! — was exactly the amount of yolks I had leftover after making Italian meringue buttercream. And lo and behold, a pattern emerged: make buttercream and then, a couple days later, make egg bagels. What a happy and fortuitous sequence of events! 

The texture was right, but my egg bagels’ color wasn’t even close to the bright yellow of the local bagel shop’s egg bagels. Which made me wonder: do bagel shops dye their egg bagels? So when I swung by our local bagel shop to pick up several containers of cream cheese for the soiree, I asked the woman behind the counter pointblank: Do you dye your egg bagels?

Yes, she said, startling me with her frankness. (And then I asked if they use the whole egg or just the yolks, and she said the whole eggs.)

So my non-yellow bagels with eight yolks are authentic after all!

(Though now my kids are begging me to dye my dough yellow so the bagels look like the ones from the bagel shop, ha.)

Egg Bagels 
Adapted from Michelle of the Brown Eyed Baker.

This is a tough tough dough, so to keep from murdering my mixer, I finish the kneading by hand. It’s a killer workout, and I can never quite work in the last two to four ounces of flour, but it’s better than burning up my mixer’s motor.

The addition of yolks make these bagels puff so high the hole disappears.

Costco sells everything seasoning, which is perfect for these bagels. My favorite way to eat an everything egg bagel: toasted, spread with lots of cream cheese and topped with a slice of salty ham.

13½ ounces sourdough starter
8 ounces cool water
8 egg yolks
¼ cup sugar
2 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons barley malt syrup, plus extra for the boiling water
6 tablespoons powdered milk
4-6 tablespoons wheat gluten
2 pounds bread flour
everything seasoning, optional

Day One
Measure everything, but the flour and everything seasoning, into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on medium speed for a few minutes. (Or, if you rather, mix by hand.) Once it’s well-mixed, begin adding the flour (that you’ve premeasured into another bowl), bit by bit, until it becomes too stiff for the mixer.

Turn the dough out on the counter and knead by hand, working in as much of the flour as possible. The dough will be soft and smooth and not one bit sticky.

Cover the dough with plastic and let rest for 10-20 minutes. From this point on, refrain from adding any more flour.

Divide into 16 pieces. Roll each piece into a rope that’s 8-10 inches long. Twist the rope around your hand, with the two ends overlapping in your palm. Pressing your palm to the counter, roll the two ends until they stick together.

Line a tray with parchment paper and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place the bagels on the tray, leaving about an inch of space between each bagel — they will only rise a little. Cover the tray with plastic, or stick the whole thing inside a garbage bag, and transfer to the fridge to proof for 12-24 hours.

Day Two
Remove the bagels from the fridge and let rest at room temperature, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Fill a large, wide kettle with 3-4 inches of water and bring to a boil. Add a scoop (one to two tablespoons) of barley malt syrup. Place a baking stone in the oven (if using) and preheat to 400 degrees.

When everything is to temperature — the water boiling, the oven hot, the bagels no longer chilly — slip three to four bagels into the boiling water, bottom side down (the bottoms are textured because of the cornmeal), and cook for 40-50 seconds. Flip the bagels and boil for another 40-50 seconds.

While the bagels are boiling, take the baking stone from the oven and sprinkle with cornmeal. With a slotted spoon, lift a bagel from the water and flip — so the original cornmeal-y bottom side is once again on the bottom — onto the baking stone. Repeat with the other bagels.

Boil another batch. Once the baking stone is full, slip it into the oven. After 15 minutes, increase the heat to 425 degrees and bake for another 5 minutes before removing from the oven and transferring the bagels to a cooling rack. Repeat the process with the remaining bagels.

For everything bagels: sprinkle everything seasoning on the baking stone along with the cornmeal. Immediately after removing the bagels from the boiling water, sprinkle them liberally with everything seasoning.

This same time, years previous: sour cream coffee cake, apple dumplings, 2015 garden stats and notes, chatty time, posing for candy, why I’m spacey.