a confession

     When I first started this blog, I did it as an experiment. Would I fall in love with blogging? Only time could tell. I didn't want to fully commit, but I felt like I had to at least try.
     As you can tell from the fact that my last post was almost a month ago, I've found my answer. The truth is, I simply don't have the time or energy to put into maintaining a blog. The life of a relatively high-achieving secondary student is jam-packed with activities: youth symphony, oil painting classes, violin lessons, and various other irregular events. Most nights, I stagger to bed at around 11 PM, to wake up at 5:30 AM the next morning. I'm always so tired, and why give myself more to do?
     I still love cooking as much as ever. In the span of a weekend, I made orange-poppy seed pancakes, sweet potato-cauliflower soup, salads for this week's lunches, and a two-layer, red wine chocolate cake with blackberry filling, vanilla buttercream, and chocolate ganache for an auction. And I've discovered a new love for photography, as well. I can say that much.
     There are other things I would rather put my resources into. Like art. I've always drawn and painted and immersed myself in the art world, and it still lights a fire in my heart. And science. Anything to do with physics makes me feel tingly and excited. Can you understand why I don't want to spend my time looking for and buying props for a food blog, taking countless photos of a cake, and editing them one-by-one?
     I suppose food blogs are like books with. I'm a huge bookworm, and I keep a meticulously-groomed Goodreads account. But I've never had the slightest inclination towards writing a novel of my own. I would prefer to take in other people's words and appreciate their beauty, rather than grapple with the creative process myself.
     So I suppose this blog is on an indefinite hiatus. Maybe one day I'll log into Blogger again and crank out a post. But it probably won't be tomorrow, or next week. We'll just have to see.

ginger chocolate-chip banana bread

    Last weekend showcased the best of Seattle. It's a closely-guarded secret, but Seattle actually has beautiful weather during the summer. The sky finally sheds her winter coat of grey clouds and reveals herself, in all her bright blue, naked glory. It's never too hot or humid (like people have told me the Northeast is during the summer - I'll just have to endure it this July!), but always balmy and just-right. The trees always seem the greenest in the sun, and their leaves cast dappled shadows on the asphalt. People flock to the parks and beaches. I went with my mother last weekend to Matthews Beach to go jogging on the Burke-Gilman trail, and it seemed as if every cyclist in Seattle passed by me.

     Alas, it was a short-lived dream. This past week almost made me believe that it was still January. It's rained almost every day. I pulled out the coats and boots I thought I could finally get rid of, and jogged in the constant drizzle. In the early morning, while I struggle to extricate myself from sleep's gauzy veil, I listen to the soothing onomatopoeia of raindrops on the roof.

     Poor weather always has the effect of making me want to cook. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for that feeling of coziness and security, but nothing says comfort to me like a homey quickbread, still steaming and fresh from the oven. Today during my violin lesson, all I could think about was how wonderful a banana bread with melty chocolate chips, kicked up with a dash of ginger, would be. And as soon as I came home, I baked this.

     Moist doesn't even begin to cover this banana bread. Because there are equal volumes of bananas and flour in the batter, it's overwhelmingly banana-y. The chocolate chips melt and ooze into the bread, and seems to permeate throughout the an entire slice. The ginger isn't really prominent in the flavor profile, but you can taste it occasionally, a gentle heat that tickles the back of your throat. This banana bread is perfect for a rainy weekend. As I write this, it's still cooling on the kitchen counter, but a third of it is already gone.  

muesli bread

     Last spring, I discovered the breathtaking magnificence of a bookstore. 

     I had taken up an interest in riding my bike around town. Being able to go places, without having to have someone drive me, was an exciting and novel concept to me. I biked to the grocery store alone to buy ingredients. Several times, I rode my bike to a park in Seattle, 8.2 miles away.  My bike was ridiculous, built for ten-year-old boys and bought from Wal-Mart, but I had freedom.

     Then, on a sunny spring day (much like the ones we've been having lately), I took a backpack and my helmet and rode to the bookstore, because why not?

     There was also a Great Harvest Bread Co. in the same shopping complex. I had never been in one before. I parked my bike outside and went in. It was amazing! A real bakery! I ogled the focaccia and sourdough and so much more - it all looked so good. Then I noticed that an employee was handing out samples. Too shy to speak up, I hung around until they offered me a slice of bread. I tried a piece of their bread with pesto and Asiago cheese, smeared liberally with butter. It was savory, complex, and delicious.

     I walked up the escalator to the bookstore. I had been there before, when I was younger, but never alone. Then, the sudden realization hit me - there were more books on one floor of a shopping complex than I would likely ever read in my life. Shakespeare's plays, classic literature, gardening manuals, treatises of philosophy, detective novels, trashy romances...in each of those blocks of stacked paper, there were words printed that came directly out of another human being's consciousness. How had we, as a civilization, managed to amass so much learning? I wandered around, just marveling. Then I walked down the escalator and rode my bike home.

     I've now developed a slightly misguided habit of buying every book I want to read. Whenever the local thrift store has a 50% off sale, I half-heartedly flip through the hideous shirts and dresses, but then spend most of my time with my head tilted to the side, scanning the bookshelves for good titles. The books I've amassed that have yet to be read sit in a permanent, 3-foot-high stack next to my desk. Agatha Christie: an Autobiography, Of Civil Government (bought at Magus Books in the University District), Letter to a Christian Nation, Little Women, and many more seem to accuse me of "why haven't you gotten around to me yet"? I will, one day.

     But back to Great Harvest Bread Co. A bakery, even a chain store or even a grocery store bakery, is a wonderful thing. The giant carts and dough hooks in the back, the multitudes of breads. There's something extremely beautiful about slicing into the crackly crust of a good artisan bread. Even when you're supposed to wait at least half an hour for it to cool, it's so tempting to just tear off a hunk of bread right out of the oven, releasing a billow of steam that catches the afternoon light in the kitchen. This bread is perfect for that, with little gems of fruits and nuts scattered in the soft dough. It's also good for making sweet-savory grilled cheese sandwiches. And for revisiting memories of simpler times.

classic whole wheat sandwich bread

     Before I became interested in food blogging, I proclaimed myself photography-averse. I just wasn't "that kind of person", I thought. I shied away from having photos taken of myself on trips or special occasions, since I thought it was a waste of time. To be fair, the only photos my family takes are the kinds where several people stand grinning at the camera, faces harshly illuminated by a naked flash...hardly professional photography. But I just didn't really value photos.

     In hindsight, I really regret it. There are so many events in my life over the past several years which have gone undocumented. Sure, I can visualize them in my brain, but a picture is so much more tangible, and so much more valuable. After all, it captures a fragile, fleeting moment of time, never to be reproduced.

     So I suppose I am a "photography person" now. I do my best to document my life. I mean, I don't have an Instagram, and I don't photograph everything I eat or do or everybody I spend my time with. But I'm more aware of the value of a picture. What's more, I actually enjoy photography, especially of food. I'm willing to spend time fussing over composition and color and lighting, and it's really satisfying.
     There will always be things that won't be and can't be immortalized in a photo. Like the chill of an early morning as I go for a run, or the tang of balsamic vinegar catching in my throat, or the darkness that seems to envelop me while I wait for the bus on school days, beaten back only by the rings of orange light cast by street lamps. More important, it seems to me, is to not worry about what I didn't and can't preserve, and to remember that I still have an entire lifetime to create and record memories.

     What did that soliloquy have to do with this bread? Close to nothing. Hahaha! I just felt like I had to talk about the guilt I sometimes feel over not documenting everything in my life. But, anyways...this bread was the first successful sandwich bread I've made. I've tried making sandwich bread from the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day master recipe. While it definitely would have made an excellent crusty, artisan-style loaf, it didn't hold up well as a sandwich loaf. So I tried a recipe for "classic whole wheat bread" from online, and it worked so much better. I let the dough rise on a Saturday morning as I went to the local thrift store and bought some cardigans, books (another thing I hoard like nobody's business), and baking pans. I came back, shaped the loaf, let it proof, and I had the best whole-wheat sandwich bread I've ever made by lunchtime. My mom and I devoured it in a matter of days. It doesn't have very much whole-wheat flour, but it has a tender crumb, and is excellent toasted, with some mashed avocado, salt, and pepper on top.

cinnamon-sugar pull-apart bread

      R and I met on the first day of third grade. We had both come from another school - almost every third grader in the classroom had. I wore my hair in two plaits, braided by my mom that morning, with a plastic flower clip. I was bespectacled and short. Between my braided hair, glasses, and poor fashion choices, my elementary school self's personal style is one I'd prefer to forget.
     The two of us were assigned to desks that were next to each other at the end of the U-shaped alignment of tables. Naturally, we fell to talking. I don't remember all of it, but I remember the conversation turning to giant tarantulas and a friend of hers whose contact lens fell out after their face was slammed into a door.
     From that first day, we were fast friends. All throughout elementary school, we were allies, if not always as close as Castor and Pollux. We traveled through late childhood together, always in the same class. We had our ups and downs, especially after the drama of fifth grade. But there were never fights or bitterness between us.
     In junior high, we separated. R moved to a different part of town, and we didn't talk very often. It happens. This year, though, we were reunited at the same high school. We've started talking again, on the rides to and from Chinese school on Friday nights. We don't have any classes together, but I still see her at school several times a week, and I'm glad.

     R's birthday almost always falls on midwinter break, a week-long vacation in the middle of February. She doesn't want anybody to know about it, because "then they feel like they have to give me presents", and write bland, cookie-cutter posts on Facebook congratulating her. But, of course, I remembered this year, and invited myself over to her house for a sleepover. I did a quick sketch of her and put it in a small frame (oh, the advantages to being an artist! They include the bonus of always having a heart-felt gift up your sleeve.) And because I always leap at the opportunity to bake for others, I prepared a loaf of cinnamon-sugar pull-apart bread. I'd been eying the recipe for forever, since it seems that everybody and their six-year-old brother is obsessed with pull-apart bread, at least on the Internet. I brought the unbaked loaf to her house, put in the refrigerator, and let it rise as we played video games and watched Avengers.
     In the morning, I woke up at 8 o'clock, because I have the annoying habit of always being the last to fall asleep and the first to wake up (seriously, I once pulled an unintentional all-nighter because the other girls were snoring too loudly). I slipped down to the kitchen to bring the bread to room temperature before baking.
     An hour and a half later, the bread was baked. The smell of yeast and cinnamon filled R's house. I pulled it out of the oven, grabbed R's camera, and insisted on taking photos. Then, we dug in. Enjoying the lazy morning after a sleepover, we pulled off steaming layers of spiced, sweet, yeasty goodness. The bread took a total of half a day to make, but I was happy to do it. Like friendships, breads benefit from a long, slow rise.

(Life has been a whirlwind of activity lately. I've been going to bed past 11 every night, much less had time to blog! I'm sorry for the hiatus. But it's a good kind of busy - I've just been accepted to a summer program at Brown University on a hefty scholarship. I can't wait until July, when I get to study in Providence for a month. I've never even visited the eastern part of the US before, much less lived in New England. Yaaaaaay!)
(R: if you're reading this, I am both unsurprised and completely unrepentant. Hahaha.)

marbled banana bread

     I'm not entirely sure which direction I want to take this blog. Looking at my recent posts, I tend to be serious, and I try to tell a story or make a meaningful insight into non-food related topics. And I like that! I want to learn to write, as well as bake and take photos. Good writing makes my heart all a-flutter, especially on food blogs.
     On the other hand, perhaps this blog is a little too somber for its teenaged author. I ought to lighten up, engage in some one-sided banter, tell you about how my family devoured an entire pan of brownies in one day or whatever. Perhaps that's more reader-friendly. Perhaps I would be more popular if I kept my posts easy-to-read, with attention-grabbing titles.
     But I don't want to pander to the audience. I don't want to turn into one of those people whose blogs are so overwhelming for all the "Follow me on Pinterest!" buttons and ads and recipe roundups and giveaways. I would be content to sit in my little corner of the blogosphere, without a graphic designer and custom code and my own URL. It's a dilemma I'm sure every blogger faces, balancing the desire for more blog traffic with the desire for a personal, genuine, heartfelt voice. For now, though, I think the latter takes greater precedence in my heart.
     So, no, this banana bread wasn't vegan (though it would have been if I had used non-dairy milk) or entirely healthy, or 2-ingredient or gluten-free. It's a moist loaf of banana bread, with serpentine swirls of rich chocolate. I baked it for a friend's 16th birthday party a while back, because I always look for the excuse to bake! And yes, it was devoured. That makes me happier than any number of repins.

pear-cinnamon baked oatmeal

   
     Mornings, for me, are quiet. On school days, I wake up at 5:30 AM to the beep of a lab timer (ubiquitous in our household of scientists). I change, brush my teeth, and do my hair in complete silence. But I don't usually notice the stillness of the morning - thoughts swirl in my head, and the constant monologue prepares me for the day to come.
     Weekday mornings usually mean breakfast is a simple affair. My repertoire includes oatmeal cooked on the stove-top, egg white omelettes, bowls of Greek yogurt and fruit, frozen homemade pancakes, and (though it sounds odd) mashed sweet potatoes topped with fried eggs. I microwave a mug of water, take my multivitamins, and eat breakfast while browsing the Internet on my iPad. Then I bundle up and venture into the inky darkness of the morning to wait for the bus in the cold air.

     Weekends are a different concern. I frequently prepare something more involved than a bowl of oatmeal. Oftentimes, I plan it out, eagerly anticipating what I'll make on Saturday morning. If it involves yeast, I'll make the dough on Friday and let it proof in the refrigerator overnight. In the lazy morning light of Saturday, I cook a breakfast fit for a king. Or just for myself.
     In this case, I made baked oatmeal. Only small step up from normal oatmeal, perhaps, but something about having the time to put a dish in the oven and eat it at a leisurely pace, rather than constantly checking the time and hurriedly putting something in my mouth, is comforting. The pears turn soft and buttery, a contrast to the hearty texture of the oats. It's satisfying and rustic, I enjoyed this dish thoroughly. In fact, I put it in the fridge and ate it throughout the week. It was perfect for my silently harried mornings, a reminder of calmer times ahead.

chocolate-espresso crinkles

      I have a hoarding problem.
      With recipes, that is.
      I use an app called Springpad to bookmark recipes: ones that use ingredients we often have; ones I find mildly intriguing; and most importantly, ones I feel are "classics", the kind that I think every cook should have in his or her repertoire. Even as a teenager who isn't even the main meal-maker in the house, I have recipes saved for rack of lamb, meatballs, lemon gnocchi, multiple tomato sauces, lasagna, cassoulet.
      When will I ever even use these? I don't know. When I am in charge of making something for the family, I often scramble for a new recipe rather than one I already have saved. I guess it's just an obsession I have, the need to be well-rounded and versatile in all things, and to not limit myself to the world of baked goods.

      These cookies were adapted from a recipe I had saved and come back to. I've never tried chocolate crinkles, only seen them on the Internet as I had with countless other foods. They're the kind of cookie you find arranged on a platter at the reception after a youth symphony concert, or the kind at a Christmas party. Wholly middle-class, wholly nostalgic, wholly suburbia. Yet they, I imagine, would be perfectly at home at a fancy tea party, among the petits fours. Or maybe they are the kind that are stealthily swiped from the kitchen counter, to be enjoyed with a mug of coffee. They are rustic, with their uneven, cracked shells, but sophisticated for the same reason.With a generous helping of coffee in each cookie, they are fudgy and rich, and satisfying on a deep level.
      I hope you enjoy these cookies. The people I baked these for certainly did!

whole-wheat salted chocolate chip cookies

     Urgency. Isn't that a feeling every high school student can relate to? Deadlines, requirements, forms. I didn't think I would have to deal with them until later, much later. I'm only a sophomore, after all. Yet...when I was younger, didn't I think that being in high school is the ultimate in maturity? But now I'm here, finally in high school, and I feel more of a child than ever.
     The real world tells me otherwise. All of my fellow classmates are in driver's ed or have already gotten their licenses. I can get a job or become an intern or do research in a lab. We can donate blood. It's overwhelming.
     But maybe it's just me. I've always pushed myself, held myself to a higher standard. If I don't do well at something, it's only my own fault. In a country like America, land of boundless opportunity, I only have myself to blame if I don't reach out and grab the opportunities within reach. Even when my classmates are still happy and generally carefree, I can't be like them. As I said when I was younger, "great minds don't think alike - that's what make them so great".

     So I spent winter break filling out applications for various programs. Volunteering at the Pacific Science Center; a summer program at Brown University. I'm only a sophomore, but nobody excelled by only doing what was required of them. More importantly, though, I'm applying to a program at the University of Washington, in which I would drop out of high school at the end of this year and enroll at UW as a freshman. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? But I'm still not sure if I want to do it. On one hand, I can escape the high-schooler immaturity and boring coursework I endure right now. I could learn about the things I love (science! art! literature! extremely niche topics!), digging into subject material as opposed to scraping the surface. On the other hand, though, do I really want to get an undergraduate degree at the university that's half an hour away? Don't I want to go somewhere, not spend four years (as opposed to the two that I would spend if I stayed in high school) where I've been almost my entire life? My dream school (oh, the foolhardiness of having a "dream school"! The dream is fragile, crushed on the whim of an admissions officer.) is MIT, not the school two of my cousins went/are attending and the school both of my parents have worked at at one time or another (the only reason we live in the US is because my dad was offered a job at UW). I've never even been to California, or the East Coast, or a foreign country (Canada, China, and the one time we had a layover in Tokyo don't count). Two more years in high school is so insignificant, compared to the vast timeline of our lives. Couldn't I endure it?
     I am still so, so, so on the fence. So I'm "just applying". Procrastinating, really - waiting as long as possible until I'm forced to make a decision. But if I'm rejected, there's my decision made for me! Ha. Which is why I've left my options open by applying to a number of programs.

    These cookies were made for two of the teachers who have written me recommendations for various things. I was drawn in by the promise of "whole-wheat". Not for the health factor, but for the complex, nutty, hearty flavor whole-wheat flour brings to food. Of course, some salt had to go on there, too. Salt and sugar are practically ubiquitous now; salted caramel has transformed from being a daring new flavor to being a mainstay in food circles. I made the dough in the morning and let it sit in the fridge as I rode my bike to go volunteer at the library, and then when I came back, scooped the dough and sprinkled some sea salt on top of each shaggy sphere. I baked them in two batches, as the recipe made much more than just 20 cookies for me. I waited more than 10 seconds for the cookies to cool, for once, letting them cool for several minutes on the sheet. I was rewarded with a gooey, rich mouthful of cookie, subtly enhanced by the small grains of salt. The whole-wheat wasn't as prominent as I expected - you could have fooled me into thinking they were made with all-purpose flour. Of course, none of that matters in the face of a soft, warm, chewy confection. There is literally no way to mess up a freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie. Try it and you'll see!

pear-ginger crisp

     

     I don't actually love ginger.

     I adore the mature complexity of gingerbread and Speculoos cookies. I even enjoyed this fall's trend of pumpkin spice, a flavor combination many bemoaned by the season's end. But I just can't bring myself to enjoy ginger wholeheartedly. There have been too many times in my life where I've accidentally eaten a whole slice of the fresh root in my mom's cooking and gagged, shocked by the sharpness, a burning sensation lingering for the next several bites of dinner. Last year, when I made some candied ginger slices, I put it in a batch of crabapple jelly that neither I nor the rest of my family touched, and it was eventually tossed when I finally cleared out our ridiculously extensive collection of fruit preserves. I have a complicated relationship with such a ubiquitous aromatic.

     Ground ginger is something I've never really had experience with. We always use the fresh bulbs in our house. But I had my mom buy a small tin of it at the grocery store for a pumpkin brown butter Bundt cake I made for Thanksgiving, so there it was, in the drawer of pantry items I jealously guard. I wanted to make apple crisp, but we only had pears, and I'd seen plenty of recipes pairing ginger with pears, so I thought a pear-ginger crisp would be perfectly acceptable for breakfast on a weekday morning.

 
    And it was! The topping, made entirely of ground oats, was substantial and hearty, and the pears were transformed by the oven into silky, buttery sweetness. I only tossed a tiny amount of ginger with the pears, because I was afraid of overpowering my intolerant taste buds, and it was perfect for me. The ginger was in the background, but still present, lending a gentle heat to the otherwise one-dimensional sweetness of pears. If you choose to make this recipe, feel free to amp up the amount of ground ginger.

 
     I'm already thinking about other ways to incorporate ginger into my baking. At the forefront of my mind has been the combination of ginger and...chocolate. Chocolate cookies with crystallized and ground ginger? Chocolate-ginger brownies? Scones with ginger and chocolate chunks? All I know for sure is that this spice wants me to promote it from mere understudy, seemingly tossed carelessly into almost every dish my family makes, to the star of the show.

one-bowl (whole-wheat!) chocolate cake

     "Two thousand thirteen". That phrase still feels foreign on my tongue. Is it really another year? Though, if you think about it, the calendar year is an entirely artificial construct, intangible but also so real to us.
     I baked this cake for a New Year's Eve party I attended. A week or so ago, I was at my aunt's house and saw that she had bought a chocolate cake mix, so (naturally!) I offered to bake her a cake from scratch, so this happened. I couldn't take photos of the inside of the cake, since I was taking it to a party. Sorry!
    There's coffee in both the cake and the frosting. However, I'm not including a recipe for the mocha frosting, because it resulted out of my dumping a ton of cocoa powder into a recipe for coffee icing that had turned grainy and weird. It eventually turned out decently, but I didn't measure anything so can hardly write a recipe for it.

    The chocolate filigree on top is very simple to make. You melt some chocolate (I used chocolate chips, but chopped chocolate would be better for melting) and put it in a pastry bag or a freezer Ziploc bag. Snip off a tiny bit off a corner, and pipe designs onto a piece of parchment paper. Place in the freezer for several minutes to let harden. They look much more difficult than they really are! I had quite a few very impressed people ask me if I had bought them from the store.

     Oh yeah, and the cake's whole wheat too, and fairly healthy. You can hardly taste the health factor, since it's so rich and moist and dark. Even though you can't really taste the coffee in the cake, coffee deepens the flavor and makes it irresistible. Overall, the best chocolate cake I've ever made, not exaggerating at all.
     Anyways, let's all strive to make 2013 a year of happiness and health (tip: start by replacing your normal chocolate cake with this one). Cheers!