Good morning, lovies.

The rain is pattering on the roof. The air outside is white. Inside, candles are flickering, the fire is warm. The children are silent: the boy writing a thank you letter and the girl sewing a hole in her pants. Granola is toasting in the oven.

It’s my day off from writing. I had exciting plans to sleep in but I woke soon after five, my mind racing. Downstairs I made coffee and and then curled up on the sofa to talk with my husband. Kindly, he closed his book and listened to me.

For breakfast, sourdough pancakes, eggs, hot chocolate, whipped cream, more coffee.

Last week my older daughter left for Florida with her employer, and her employer’s horse and dog.

They’ll be there for a month, living in a camper at a barn; the employer will be taking riding lessons and my daughter will be helping out wherever. While I was chatting with her on the phone this morning, she got a text telling her to go pick coconuts.

I guess she’s not in Virginia anymore.

After years of reading about flaky salt, I finally bought some.

I can’t believe I waited so long. Sprinkled on cookies before baking, it’s a game changer. (Also new to my kitchen, caramel bits, yummm.)

More about both soon, pinky promise.

When my mom told me I needed to read In Shock by Dr. Rana Awdish, I ignored her for a bit — a book about a doctor turned patient didn’t sound all that fab — but she persisted so I finally checked it out of the library, promptly inhaled it, and then bought a copy of my own to boot. I want my older son to read it, since he’s interested in medicine, and my husband, too, and anyone else who interacts with the medical system. Which is everyone.

Nutshell: our approach to medical care is screwy. Doctors are pitted against patients. Patients aren’t seen as people. And this doctor, through her harrowing story, experiences these problems up close and then makes changes accordingly.

Read it.

This afternoon I’ll check my daughter’s math and make sure my younger son practices his music. I’ll write a chatty email to a friend and probably start another blog post. I’ll drink coffee and vacuum the floors.

Maybe I’ll take a nap, or maybe the kids and I will watch another episode of The Great British Baking Show, or maybe we’ll start a new read-aloud.

There will be potato soup for supper, and I’ll go to bed early.

xoxo

P.S. One more thing: this music video from last summer’s Peru trip.

This same time, years previous: crispy baked hash browns, eight, gourmet chocolate bark, chai-spiced hot chocolate.

On Saturday, we celebrated this boy’s twelfth birthday.

The main order of business: food. The kid can really pack it away.

Breakfast: bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, and orange juice.
Lunch: shrimp scampi, broccoli, and cake.
Supper: pizza, veggies and dip, and rootbeer.

The cake was kind of a disaster.

Actually, the idea (from Aimee’s blog Simple Bites) was great. Brilliant, really. Individual pans of ice cream, each one a different flavor (in our case: vanilla, cookies-and-cream, coffee, chocolate dipper), frozen separately and then stacked, along with a layer of brownie.

The bottom layer of ice cream had a chocolate cookie crust (so yum), and the whole thing got iced with stabilized whipped cream (a teaspoon of gelatin sprinkled into a cup of whipping cream). For the top layer, mounded scoops of assorted ice creams (first frozen into a pan and then, once frozen solid, unmolded onto the top of the cake). Mini chocolate chips, swirls of ice cream, and sprinkles finished off the whole thing.

The problem was the brownie layer. I’d suspected a layer of frozen brownie might be hard to cut, so I emailed Aimee to find out what kind of brownies she used. I didn’t hear back from her, however, until after I’d gone ahead and made a pan of brownies — she’d used a mix, she said.

Oh. Also, oops.

Before serving, we let the cake sit at room temperature to the point of melting. But even then, the brownies were impossible to cut through. My husband tried everything: soaking the knives — a variety of them — in hot water, heating knives on the stove, using an electric knife (and nearly overheating it). The poor cake looked like it’d been through a war.

None of this fazed the birthday boy, of course. And actually, we all had fun with the cake despite the problems. Food adventures are the best.

Notes for next time, because there will be a next time — it’s a good cake:

*more cookie crumb layers
*perhaps some caramel sauce between a couple of the layers
*in place of the brownies (because rockhard chocolate, no matter how delicious, does not belong in an ice cream cake), thin layers of cake
*only a total of four layers. Five layers, plus the ice cream-scoop topping, was a bit ridiculous.

For our son’s main gift, my husband and I went out on a limb and got him something new to both him and us: an Arduino kit.

Actually, I still don’t know what it is, really. Circuit boards and LED lights and wires and connectors and stuff. But the kid is entranced.

He spends hours figuring things out, and already he’s squirreling aside cash for another kit. Something to do with a self-driving car….

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (2.6.17), object of terror, loss, timpano!, a Wednesday list, cheesy bacon toasts, itchy in my skin, chocolate mint chip cookies, seven, wheat berry salad, travel tips, the perfect classic cheesecake.

At the library last week, I snatched the entire stack of Cook’s Illustrated magazines and ever since I’ve been happily sifting through the recipes, making grocery lists, tracking down unique ingredients, and experimenting. For supper a couple nights back, I made chicken and sausage gumbo. It was delicious — spicy, rich, meaty, and flavorful — but the thing that I was most excited about was the sauce. Or rather, how I had thickened the sauce.

The recipe called for toasting the flour — a whole cup of it — in the oven until it was the color of cinnamon and then adding it to the broth to flavor, thicken, and darken the sauce. I’d never heard the likes, so of course I had to try it.

Not knowing what to expect, the process felt touch-and-go. While the flour toasted, I hovered, afraid it would scorch, but I needn’t have worried — the flour browned slowly and steadily. Then, adding the broth to the flour, the paste turned lumpy even though I had been steadily whisking the whole time. I ran my immersion blender through the paste — problem solved. And then, immediately after adding the flour to the liquid, the sauce tasted grainy, like a Nicaraguan corn drink, and I nearly threw in the towel. There was no way I’d get this by my family’s noses.

But then, after simmering the sauce for another 20-30 minutes, the weird texture completely disappeared, leaving the sauce smooth as silk. Dark, nutty brown, and lusciously rich, it reminded me of an adobo sauce (never mind that I’ve never made an adobo sauce) — it had depth.

I’m still scratching my head about the flour, though. Any other time, adding a cup of flour to four cups of liquid would yield a horribly gelatinous paste, so why not in this case? Does flour lose its thickening properties after it’s been toasted?

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo
Adapted from the January and February 2017 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

The recipe called for two pounds of chicken, but since there was plenty of sauce, next time I’ll use three pounds.

As for the sausage, andouille is expensive and sort of hard to find, and after eating it, I think any spicy sausage would work well here. Next time I’ll probably use kielbasa instead.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 green pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon each smoked paprika and dried thyme
2 bay leaves
¼ – ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (I used chile coban)
4 cups chicken broth, divided
2-3 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs
8 ounces andouille sausage, sliced in half lengthwise and then in crosswise in quarter-inch pieces
salt and black pepper
6 scallions, sliced thin
1 teaspoon white vinegar

to toast the flour:
Put the flour in a sided baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes, stirring every five minutes. When the flour is the color of ground cinnamon, remove it from the oven and transfer to a bowl to cool. The flour can be made ahead and stored in the freezer.

to make the gumbo:
Saute the pepper, onion, and celery in the oil until softened. Add the garlic, thyme, paprika, bay leave, cayenne, and a bit of salt and pepper and saute for another minute. Add 2 cups of chicken broth. Nestle the chicken into the broth in a single layer (don’t worry if it’s not completely submerged) and cook on medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, until it’s cooked through. Remove the chicken to a plate to cool and then shred with a fork.

Slowly whisk the remaining 2 cups of broth into the browned flour. If the paste is lumpy, use an immersion blender to smooth it out. Increase the heat under the vegetables and slowly whisk in the flour-broth paste. Add the sausage. Simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the chicken and scallions to the gumbo and heat through. Remove the bay leaves and season with salt and black pepper. Remove from heat and stir in the vinegar.

Serve the gumbo over rice.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (2.1.16), stuck buttons and frozen pipes, how we got our house, taco seasoning mix, advice, please.