When I was scrolling through photos for the quotidian post, I realized that I had an extra large amount of food photos which, I decided, deserved a post all their own. So, without further ado, here’s what’s been going down the hatch in recent days.

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Tamales, with extra red sauce and curtido.

Speaking of tamales. Last time I was at Costco, I noticed they had chicken tamales, 15 for sixteen dollars. They looked good, but without the samples (I miss samples!!!), I hesitated. Can anyone vouch for them?

***

At the bakery, we made Basque cheesecakes for Easter. While they might be a cinch to make at home, learning to make them in the bakery was a whole other story. I’d bake four at a time: first in the diner oven to get the color, and then in the bakery oven to get them baked through without scorching. It required careful maneuvering of hot trays and lots of temperature checks and some occasional mild cursing.

It was worth it, though. 

***

Trying to nail down the cheesecake bake process, I went through about six test cakes which meant there were lots of not-perfect cakes that needed to be eaten (poor us). Then one day I got a brilliant idea: cheesecake ice cream! I mixed up a batch of vanilla ice cream (which already has cream cheese in the base) and then, when the ice cream was almost done churning, I broke a couple pieces of cheesecake into it. 

So if you ever find yourself with a bum cheesecake on hand, now you know what to do!

***

I am not a chip person but a couple weeks ago I discovered the best chips in the world.

My husband and I ate a whole bag in a single sitting. Twice.

“These are my favorite chips for the rest of my life.” (If my life had a sound track, trumpets would’ve sounded.) “If you ever want to get me a treat, get these.”

(And now I want more chips, waaaah!) 

***

The kids stopped at the store to get treats on their way home after choir; my daughter got yogurt, bananas, and blueberries, and my son got a head of lettuce and a tomato for his beloved sandwiches. 

(Don’t worry, they’re actually quite normal. Typically they get chips and gummy candy.)

***

Our Puerto Rican friends invited us over for supper: fricase de pollo con jugo de uva (chicken marinated and cooked in grape juice and served in a broth with other veggies), rice, salad, tostones, and mayo-ketchup. 

Frying the tostones is disasterish, but man, are they good.

***

I made a riff on my standard red lentils: added a sweet potato and a white potato, chopped small, and threw in a whole box of chopped spinach. Lemon, too, of course. I thought it was delicious, but the entire family revolted — they said it had a weird flavor. 

***

Here’s one of the plates I fixed my son for a lunch: beef fajitas (just the meat), beans and rice, red lentil riff, kale, and cherry delight.

He’s pretty amenable about different foods, so he gets a spread.

***

And here’s another one of his meals. 

Leftover chicken salad and a cabbage slaw thingy from the diner, leftover rolls from Easter, and his store-bought lettuce. 

My version:

Half a leftover roll, buttered and then grilled, leftover sloppy joe meat, and the cabbage slaw. Note: grilling the bun makes all the difference. #magpielessons

***

In my current household, no one else really goes for avocados. I cut one in half and wrap the half with the seed in plastic and stick it back in the fridge. It usually holds for a couple days that way.

Also, a couple of our jars of salsa unsealed but still smelled good. My younger son, a bonafide salsa freak, couldn’t bear to throw them out, so he ate some. I waited, like a good mother, to see if he got sick. When he didn’t, we all dug in.

***

A friend posted a photo of a pepperoni roll on Facebook, or what the news source was calling a pepperoni roll, which, in their case, was basically just some sticks of pepperoni jabbed through a lump of (what looked like) government-issued white bread. She was appalled, I was scandalized. “THAT is an abomination,” I wrote. And then I couldn’t shake the idea of pepperoni rolls so I made a batch.

He’s actually jumping up and down with glee. You just can’t tell. He’s a very controlled man. (snort)

I don’t know what my friend’s version of a pepperoni roll is, but mine involves stirring chopped pepperoni and grated parmesan into the no-knead dough and then rolling it out and stuffing the squares with lots of pepperoni and, in this case, chunks of fresh mozzarella.

I need to make another batch.

This same time, years previous: what it’s like to write full time: an experiment, creamed honey, out of character, ailments, my lot, honey baked chicken.

Exactly two weeks to the day after my second vaccine, my older son picked me up in his snazzy convertible and drove me to my parents’ where I celebrated my full immunity by hugging my mom and dad maskless for the first time in over a year. 

My mother was doing a lotion treatment when I arrived — thus, the duck hands.

It was a token gesture — it’s not like the two-week date is the day — but still, it felt good to mark it. 

***

By the end of May, most people in my social circles will be fully immunized which means that soon we can get together, indoors and unmasked. Even though I’ve known this was coming, the realization feels semi-shocking. I’ve gotten so used to physical distancing that, in order to cope, I’ve refrained from thinking, dreaming, and planning about getting together with other people. And now— 

Now?

NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s have a doughnut party! I say to my husband. Everyone will be vaccinated so no masks, and it’d be outdoors so that’d help people relax. Unvaccinated people know the drill — stay masked and keep distant — but everyone else would be just fine, right?

But — I pause — what about children? And are there laws about outdoor gatherings? What if people look at us wonky for being risky — would it be risky? I don’t think so, but maybe? Darn. A doughnut party might be pushing it… 

And just like that I slip right back into the same old swirl of confusion that’s characterized this pandemic: what science to listen to, how to be respectful and gracious, how to take precautions and live without fear. It’s such a muddle, and it’s all terribly draining.

Bottom line? Hooking back up with civilization is gonna be tricky. 

***

The other day the bakery was closed to the public and, since all of us have been vaccinated, no masks. No longer muzzled, I ate and talked and laughed with wild abandon. And I couldn’t stop staring at mouths! So much expression! So much nuance! So much glorious mouthiness! It was fabulous.

And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was committing a crime. Each time I walked from bathroom to bakery, or ate something and then went back to work, and didn’t pause to put on my mask, I felt a pang, like I was missing something important. Like at any moment I was going to get in trouble.

Was this maskless thing really okay?

***

Gearing up for a visit from out-of-state friends, my mom told me that, even though they were all vaccinated, she wasn’t sure she felt okay sitting down together at the table for a meal. “Maybe we’ll just eat in the living room,” she said. “That way we can spread out.”

“But you’re all vaccinated,” I said. “You can eat together!”

“I don’t know…” she hedged.

“Just set the table and then do it,” I said. “Rip off the bandaid. It’ll get easier after that.”

And then the NYTimes ran an article titled “Why do so many vaccinated people remain irrationally fearful?” which I forwarded to my mom. Summary: vaccinated people can still get (mildly) sick, but you have a greater chance of getting in a car crash, and we ride in cars all the time. When there is a new risk — like Covid — people tend to perceive it as really big. But once that risk has been around for a while, it becomes normalized, like driving in cars.

They ate at the table.

***

Last weekend, we went on a hike with friends. As we tromped up the rocky trail that zigzagged back and forth over a small creek, we talked about kids and work and Covid, and then my friend asked me if I’d been working on the book. 

I sighed and explained that no, I’d given it up during the pandemic. Already trapped at home, I didn’t want to sequester myself up in my room so I could slog along on a painstakingly hard task that made me even more isolated and emotionally worn out than I already was. Once I could get back into coffee shops, I explained, then I’d consider starting up again. 

“But you’re vaccinated now,” she pointed out. “Doesn’t that mean you can write in coffee shops?”

I stopped walking. “Oh.” [stunned silence] “Um, I never….”

So far this week, I’ve gone to two different coffee shops. 

It’s awesome.  

***

The other night after shooing the kids off to bed and settling down on the sofa next to my husband, I said, “So what do we do about people who choose not to get vaccinated?” 

He looked at me blankly.

“I mean, now that we’re vaccinated, is it okay to have unvaccinated people in our home? Do we ask them to stay masked? Should we stay masked? Do we limit our visits to the outdoors?” 

“Who cares?” he said. “I don’t ask people if they’ve had the flu shot, so why would I ask them if they’ve had the covid vaccine? I’m just going to go about my life.”

That didn’t answer my question — are we welcoming unvaccinated people into our home and, more pointedly, is there anything we should do to help hold people accountable, because the longer people dilly-dally about the vaccine, the greater the chance that variants will go hog wild and then this thing will never end SO GET THE VACCINE ALREADY PEOPLE PLEASE — but he made good points: take care of myself, follow CDC guidelines in public, and just chill the heck down.

Just as when the pandemic started, now that it’s lifting, we’re once again on a steep learning curve. The situation is constantly shifting — just today a new report came out that says there’s hardly any evidence of outdoor transmission; it’s the indoor events that cause problems — and the situation will probably look quite different even just a few short weeks from now. If I’m patient, if I just hunker down and bide my time a little longer, many of my questions will probably work themselves out.

Or that’s my hunch, at least.

In the meantime, I’m stocking up on oil and confectioner’s sugar. You know, just in case we decide to fry a few hundred doughnuts some afternoon….

***

P.S. Thursday morning update: an opinion piece on how to handle vaccinated adults and unvaccinated kids. Like I said, the situation is evolving at a rapid clip.

This same time, years previous: making pie: I have a system, both ends, the best fix, in the night air, with an audience, let’s pretend this isn’t happening, the quotidian (4.21.14), nutmeg coffee cake, therapy, bacon-wrapped jalapeños.

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.