This fall my parents moved three miles down the road into a house that they (and my husband and a few other hammery folk) built. We were in virgin territory, living in such close proximity to my parents. I did not know what it would be like. What would it mean—really mean—to live this close?

Here’s what it means:

*We are neighbors! We are far enough apart that we don’t cross paths if we don’t choose to, but close enough that we can walk over for a visit or to borrow a tool.

*For the first time since I left home when I was 17, I can visit my folks without baggage, husband, or kids. I just hop in the car and zip over. Or I walk over. Or run. Besides my own house, there is no other home in the world where I’m perfectly at home, except for my parents’ place. It’s like my living space has doubled. I’ve got two places to crash now.

*For Thanksgiving, we ate the main meal at my brother’s house (a half mile down the road) and then had dessert at my parents’ house. A bunch of us walked over in the dusk, enjoying the chilly air, exercise, and conversation.

*We pick things up in town for each other—groceries, plants, etc. If we spy a deal, we call the other to see if they want to take advantage.

*My parents do lots and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of child care. One of their goals for moving here was to soak up the grands. I keep thinking they’re going to reach the saturation point any day now…

*So much flexibility! The other night we had supper at their house and when it came time to leave, my youngest didn’t want to come home with us. So he stayed. My younger daughter had already fallen asleep in the downstairs bedroom, so she stayed, too.

*The kids can go over there randomly, just to hang out. Last week my older daughter called up my mom to see if she might spend the night. My mom said sure, so we dropped my girl off that evening. She didn’t come home until the next evening. Mostly, my mom said, she just read all day. (I think she wants to go over there just so she can get out of work and read herself cross-eyed.)

*When my dad gets the urge, he rides over on his bike and gives the kids science lessons.

*My parents sometimes take the kids to their choir rehearsals or whatever, just to see what it is they are up to.

*My children invite their friends over, not only to our house, but to their grandparents’ house. The other week, my younger daughter and her friend went over there and made a ginormous batch of tapioca pudding with my mom. Next up, my younger son and his friend are scheduled for a sleep over. 

*Last minute dinner invitations.

*Woods! My parents’ 13 acres is all forested. So now my kids have a new place to crash through, explore, and make forts in. In the summer there are blackberries to eat. In the winter my father makes firewood deliveries.

All in all, it’s a pretty sweet deal, this living-close-to-parents thing. We’re loving it.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (1.6.14), date nut bread, headless chickens, so worth it, candied peanuts, salted dulce de leche ice cream with candied peanuts, winter chickens, turkey noodle soup, and what I did.    

I am intrigued by fruitcake. Why are so many are so bad? Why do people continue to make them? Why the fake red and green chemical chunks? It’s all so mysterious.

I suppose that fruitcakes had a very logical reason for being, at least back in the beginning they did. Back then, a cake built from dried fruits made sense. Everyone had dried fruit (and dried fish, dried venison, dried herbs, etc.), so they used what they had. Plus, the natural sugars from the dried fruit decreased the need for expensive, store-bought sugar. Preserving the cake with liquor made sense, too. They sure didn’t have any freezers for long-term storage.

Actually, I just made all that stuff up. I don’t know anything about the origins of fruitcake. But it sounded good, right?

As I see it, there is absolutely no justification for the current existence of florescent-colored, sticky-sweet, fruitcake atrocities. You’d think, what with modernization and evolution and all that, fruitcakes would either be a relic of the past or a knock-dead delicious dessert. In a world of chocolate and butter, I see no need for anything less.

Unless!


Unless fruitcakes are, in their true, unadulterated form, truly delicious. This, my friends, is my hunch. And this, my friends, is why on December of 2014 I set about on a quest to break the fruitcake barrier.

Spoiler alert: I failed.

Some foodie friends told me about their family fruitcake that everyone, including children, loved. I took down their recipe. I asked detailed questions. I ran a fruitcake background check, a sort of cross-examination of people who had actually tasted the cake. I sourced the last bottle of concord grape wine in town and then made my husband go get it. And then I made the cake.

It took three weeks. The fruits soaked in rum and wine for two of those weeks, and after the cake was baked, it sat wrapped in wax paper for another full week. The cake looked promising.

On Christmas Eve, we finally cut into it. And it was awful: bitter, gummy in the middle, and so overpoweringly alcoholic that it made my eyes water. Or perhaps my eyes watered from the disappointment? I don’t know. But it was bad. Really, truly, irrevocably bad.

Part of the problem was me, I’m pretty sure. See, the recipe called for lots of minced orange and lemon rind. So I bought real lemons and oranges, carefully cut off the rinds to minimize pith, and then minced them up. But after adding them to the fruit cocktail, I learned, through further questioning, that the recipe meant candied peels. Oops. So that probably explained the bitter.

As for the gumminess—my fault, again. Fifteen more minutes in the oven would’ve fixed that problem.

But the alcohol, now. That was not my mistake. I followed the recipe to a tee. I had thought that because the copious amounts of alcohol were added pre-baking, much of the kick would be knocked out in the two-hour baking time. I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

At our family reunion, I brought up the mystifying topic of fruitcakes. Opinions varied. Someone suggested that we each come to the next gathering with a fruitcake and then have a taste test competition. I suggested that we make it more interesting by also bringing a catapult to launch the losing cakes… perhaps at the losing cooks. I was feeling vindictive.

Through the grapevine I heard that one of my friends was experimenting with fruitcake, so once we returned from Pennsylvania, I emailed him to suggest a fruitcake tasting party. He came bearing not only his fruitcake, but his father-in-law’s, too.

Both cakes were completely different. The non-alcoholic one was like a fruit bar with large chunks of chewy fruit layered together. The other was like a dark, fruity bread that, even though it had been bathed in rum post-baking, only tasted mildly of alcohol. Both were delicious but neither was exactly what I had in mind: something outstandingly fruity while still maintaining an element of cakeyness.

When it came time to sample my cake, my friend took a tentative taste and then shook his head. It was unanimous: the cake was inedible. Let me tell you, it felt awfully good to finally toss that cake to the chickens. Also? My kids were so scarred by my failure that they refused to taste the cakes my friend brought. In their minds, fruitcake equaled poison. This fruitcake obsession of mine was not off to a good start.

Still, I’m not giving up. Deep in my soul, I believe—oh, I believe!—there is a fruitcake out there for me, somewhere. And full disclosure: I have another recipe in the works. It just might be my crowning fruitcake glory. Then again, it might not. I don’t exactly have a great track record.

In the meantime, tell me: what is your relationship with fruitcake? Have you ever eaten a good one? If so, share! Because I am going to break this fruitcake barrier, so help me everyone.

This same time, years previous: buckwheat apple pancakes, sweet and spicy popcorn, and my jackpot.

The January issue of Bon Appetit arrived a week or so before Christmas. It was chock full of healthy, light recipes, and in the midst of the sugar and butter glut, each page was like a breath of fresh air. Most of the recipes, however, were decadent in their over-the-top expensive ingredients and complicated procedures. Green smoothie with almond butter and flaxseed oil and agave syrup and matcha and—? It was again too much, just in the other direction.

Still, I’m pretty good at hacking away at the fru-fru fluff and getting down to the heart of the matter. Or the heart of the recipe, as it were. So when my eyes lighted on a 5-Grain Porridge with Bee Pollen, Apples, and Coconut, I skipped right over the bee pollen part (because yeah right) and headed for the freezers to take stock of my Weird Grain Collection. I didn’t have all the grains, but the headnote was generous about my inadequacies. “Use what you’ve got—just bump up the quantity,” they said. So I did, and the porridge was lovely.

The topping, the apples and coconut, while obviously rather irrelevant, did sound interesting. Plus, I had some softening apples on the windowsill and some large-flake, toasted and sweetened snacking coconut in the pantry. It was worth a shot.

And it was worth a shot. The sauteed apples, cinnamon, and coconut were so delicious that they pretty much defeated the purpose of the porridge. I mean, isn’t porridge all about eating healthy, sparingly, lightly? Because here I was fighting off urges to pig, gorge, stuff myself. The situation seemed rather counterproductive. And positively delightful.

PS. My husband abhors oatmeal, steel cut oats, polenta, etc. Yesterday morning I coaxed him into eating a bowlful of this porridge. While eating, he accidentally made mm-mmm noises. We were both startled.

PPS. And just as I finished typing that last paragraph, my husband went to the kitchen to fix his morning bowl of granola and said, “I’m surprised you didn’t make me that porridge this morning. It was pretty good. It filled me up till 2 o’clock. Not that you give a rat’s heinie.” (Because I am typing this and ignoring him.) “For a bowl of oatmeal, it was all right. It has the John Murch seal of approval.”

5-Grain Porridge with Apples
Adapted from the January 2015 issue of Bon Appetit.

For my first round, I didn’t have quinoa, amaranth, or wheat bran, so I added oat bran and steel cut oats. I like the idea of a wide variety of grains, though, so I may actually go out and buy some amaranth and quinoa before I make my next pot of porridge.

This recipe makes a large amount of porridge and only enough apple-coconut topping for about two servings. Either increase the amount of topping, or just make more when you need it (I’ve been doing the latter).

Update: leftover porridge is marvelous when used in place of the cooked cracked wheat in these pancakes.

for the porridge: 
½ cup each brown rice and quinoa
¼ cup each amaranth, millet, and wheat bran
¾ teaspoon salt
6 cups water

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, partially covered, for 30-50 minutes, stirring frequently. (They say it takes 40-50 minutes, but mine was done at the 30-minute mark.)

for the apples: 
small dollop of coconut oil
1 tart-sweet apple, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup coconut flakes
brown sugar
milk

Melt the coconut oil in a skillet and add the apple chunks and cinnamon. Stir once and then let the apples cook, undisturbed. You want them to get caramelized, not mushy. Once they are brown on one side, give them a stir and let them cook on the other side.

to serve:
Spoon some porridge into a bowl. Add half of the apples and coconut, and a spoonful of brown sugar. Top with cold milk.

This same time, years previous: constant motion, the quotidian (1.2.12), not a true confession, lentil sausage soup, baguettes, loose ends, of an evening (and a morning), cranberry sauce, and when cars dance.