Under My Thumb

Best rule of thumb in every area of your life: know your audience. Having a dinner party? Serving Veal Prince Orlov to your vegan friends won’t be appreciated. Giving a speech to a bunch of 6 year olds? You’ll get a lot further is you wear a clown suit over a business suit. But try that same facepaint and oversized shoes with your work colleagues and you’ll get laughs for all the wrong reasons!

I learned this lesson recently when I baked a sweet, somewhat girly looking White Cake with Strawberry Meringue Buttercream. This is one of my favorite spring recipes when the first little strawberries appear in the garden. I usually make cupcakes and top them with one sweet succulent little berry.

This go around, I went for sheet cake for a couple of reasons: less time decorating and easier to transport to a party.

The problem? The party was at a little private social club; think speakeasy with more beards and less jazz.

A some-would-say-illegal gathering of fellow travelers for drinking and dancing is no place for such an innocent little delicacy. For the most part, she was ignored. I had to act like one of those bossy stage moms to even get her noticed. A few kind souls indulged at my insistence, and my dear friend Anne even sought me out to say how much she enjoyed her slice, but for the most part Pink Berry just sat there looking pretty.

So, I packed up the half eaten cake and hauled her out to orchestra practice for Music Matters Live at a rehearsal space in Bellevue.

I set the cake on one of the producer’s tables, with limited utensils and no napkins and then walked outside to enjoy some sunshine. By the time I walked back in 15 minutes later,  Pink Berry had been devoured. All the Section Leaders licked their fingers, raved about the flavor and texture and then said, “We’re band geeks! We love treats!”.

I always have tons of fun at The Speakeasy, but I think my pink cake had more fun with the band geeks. And I did learn an invaluable lesson: next time I go to the home of Genuine American Riffraff, I’ll try something soaked in bourbon. Or better yet, just bring the bourbon.

Don’t Drink The Water

When Kevin bought his West Seattle house over a decade ago, he inherited a rhubarb plant of colossal proportions. For years it grew and grew, then wilted, withered and died. I’m not sure I even knew what it was until my sister Nancy visited me from Chicago and lusted after it. Hey, I never claimed to be a farmer!

Kevin"s Rhubarb Is Not THIS Big!

Of course, once my sister coveted my rhubarb, I became interested. Anyone who has a sister understands this phenomenon. For the last several years, I’ve been making Strawberry Rhubarb Compote, Rhubarb Pies, Rhubarb Crumbles and bars. I’m telling you, this monstrous rhubarb could shade a small town.

This year, inspired by a recent visit to Maria Hines award-winning Tilth restaurant, I decided to try a Strawberry Rhubarb Soda! From scratch. With no recipe to follow.

I started with a basic Simple Syrup:

1 Cup Water
1 Cup Sugar (I use fine sugar)
Simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved

Then I poured the hot Syrup over a bowl of chopped rhubarb (5 stalks) and a pint of strawberries quartered. I added a teaspoon of vanilla and put the whole concoction over a saucepan of simmering water.

Us e A Heatproof Bowl!

I simmered until the fruit was really soft, a half an hour and then I just let it sit most of the day, about 4 hours. Then I grabbed a sieve and another bowl and poured the fruit through the sieve. I pushed the fruit through the sieve, too. Then I strained it again.

Rhubarb Beauty Ensued!

Kevin helped me with the final steps: pouring the rhubarb syrup over ice and adding the fizzy water.

And he taste tested. We decided for best, most soda like results, you really need to go half to half on syrup and water. For more of a spritzer, you could use 1/4 syrup to water.

So, how did the Giant Rhubarb Experiment come out? Let’s just say, if I could find a way to bottle this, I’d have my sister’s birthday, Christmas, and Teacher’s Day gift for the rest of her life!!

(You’ve Got To) Work For Love

Have you even wondered how this baker-blogger makes ends meet; buys all that butter for batter? No? Well, darn it, I am going to tell you anyway. I work in the music business mostly behind the scenes, sometimes in front of microphone.

Last March, I was summoned to Bear Creek Studios outside Seattle to help on a project with the extraordinary singer songwriter Brandi Carlile. My job, to ask Brandi questions from off camera to help her speak naturally about the project on camera. Call me The Artist Whisperer.

Here’s the first piece from our day at Bear Creek. Blink and you’ll miss my handy work; Brandi speaking about her Mom’s influence on this song. But stay for the song and exclusive version of ‘Hard Way Home’. Like I said, she’s extraordinary.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1

It’s A Mistake

(If titling my blog after a Staind song wouldn’t hasten the four horsemen of The Apocalypse, I would have called today’s blog ‘It’s Been A While’. It’s not that I haven’t been baking; it’s that I’ve been cheating on my blogging by actually…er…working. I love my new job; it’s all going swimmingly but I do miss the quiet tippy tapping in the soft light of the laptop.)

The title of this blog refers to what I must now acknowledge is a common occurrence: I f*ed up a cake. As I  bake out of my comfort zone, I realize I have to make accommodations for mess ups. Let’s call it the Mistake Cake.

Unlike my Pretty On The Inside cake, The Mistake Cake (officially Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Bundt Cake) was pretty gorgeous.

The Dry Ingredients

Using Sharffen Berger Chocolate Adds Flavor (and sadly expense)

Yeah Yeah Yeah, get To The F Up!

Well, it came after the came out of the oven.

Right?

The recipe called for a chocolate glaze; very simple. Really just 4 ingredients melted together on the stove. Everything was melting according to plan, and then suddenly: separation! The elegant chocolate glaze turned into an ugly, gloppy mess. I threw it out, and made it again, this time paying extra care to the measurements. Same result!

Man, did I fret. I literally couldn’t sleep that night. But the next morning I looked at my cake and thought, “Consistency is hard.” It’s not that the consistency of the cake was hard, it was lovely, but being consistent is well, hit or miss. Or at least it is for me. That’s part of things being made from scratch and after months of baking and blogging, I accept that!

I also have more respect for people and things who do things consistently well: like Tina Fey, Bakery Nouveau and the makers of Gossip Girl. I hope someday to be a flop free baker, but until that day comes, I accept the mistake cake!

For those of you who cannot accept mistakes, I found this video of the making of this cake. Watch it: HERE

Life Is Hard

…but really, does it have to be? Sometimes hard is in your head, I know because it used to be in mine. This week, I started my new full time job at Jet City Stream, a brand new Seattle start-up, that at it’s core is an internet stream playing nothing but Northwest bands and artists.

My old mind would probably have freaked out a little, creating stress about everything from morning traffic to building an audience, learning a whole new on-air studio to finding the best music to play. But my new mind, thanks in great part to 5 months of decompression after a job I let almost crush me and the amazing welcoming team at JCS, takes everything in stride. Broken mic on day one? No sweat. A small library to work with? Rome wasn’t built in a day. Feeling inadequet? Don’t go down that rabbit hole.

Baking can stress you out but good, too. But it shouldn’t! That’s not to say it isn’t challenging and complicated sometimes, but if you are stressing out over your baking, you might want to take a step back and investigate your mind. Or, you could just follow the easiest recipe yet…with HUGE results. Try these delicious Raspberry Cornmeal Crumble Bars

You can make this recipe in one bowl.

Almonds & Cornmeal Give The Crumble It's Flavor

Your Batter *Should* Be Lumpy

Pat The Batter Into The Corners With Your Hands

 

Don't Stress, Frozen Berries Are Fine!

Pop This In The Over And...

Eat This...and Relax!

 

Rise

 

The Easter Bunny has been very good to me. Over the years, he has brought me beautiful colored eggs, candy, kaleidoscopes, chocolate bunnies, and one special year, a snowboard.

The Black Widow

But the best Easter gift I have ever received, I got 25 years ago today when Kevin rolled away the stone of addiction he’d been chained to and rose up to embrace life. He is risen! 25 years without a relapse, without white knuckles, and without drama; what an amazing accomplishment.

Easter is a very special day for us. In fact, I’ve only a moment to write as I need to get into the kitchen to start Kevin’s feast. But I wanted to share one of his Easter treats.

How clever is that cookie from Bakery Nouveau? I wish I had baked that! And guess what? Thanks to the Easter Bunny, next year, I can. In my Easter Basket this morning? A set of Easter cookie cutters including a cross, a church, and an egg! Now that’s miraculous.

Happy Easter!

 

Shining Star

Star Anna is the first of several local musicians to get the string treatment from the Synergia NW Orchestra in preparation for Music Matters Live, May 12th at The Paramount Theatre. To be more precise, Star and Justin Davis (of The Laughing Dogs) convened with a small group of the orchestra members to prepare for an appearance on New Day Northwest to promote the show.

They walked into the room complete strangers and an hour later were playing together like this.

Gorgeous!!

Both Star and Justin had participated in school music programs as kids. Star played drums in the marching band and sang in the choir before picking up the guitar. Justin played in every band. His first instrument was the piano, so no marching for him. But both were moved to play in Music Matters Live to support on-going music programs for kids in Washington State schools.

I hope this little tease entices you to join us for Music Matters Live. Get your details and tickets here.