The right thing

I'm going to fucking need the ambulance – I want to pick up the phone and shout into the receiver. I'm having a crushing, no – squeezing, no – stabbing, no – burning sensation somewhere there, an inch deep under the ribcage, on the left of the sternum. I take a breath and it gets worse, a sharp pain shoots up my neck and into my shoulders, so I try not to breathe that much. As I wipe my cheeks dry there is a black residue on my fingertips, the mascara. I can't see, but I'm sure I must look like shit right now. Please fucking help me, I want to say.

That's stupid, so stupid to have wound up like this. I was going to unlock my bike, but I need a moment. I pull my bag off the shoulder, put it down on the pavement and place myself next to it. I pick my phone from the bottom of the bag and look at the black screen like it's a mirror. I do look like shit: the eyelids thicker than usual, especially the lower ones, puffy cheeks under the eyes, the mascara leaks. I search my bag for a napkin—the keys, wallet, lipstick, yes, a bruised ripe peach, a crumpled post-it with a grocery list (three exclamation marks next to 'cherries'), but there is no damn napkin today. I swipe the phone screen and dial Anthony. I tell him I'm sitting on the pavement, tell him about the chest pains. Take a deep breath, he says—but it feels there is a sharp fish bone stuck in my throat, I say back.
 
You are changing jobs, he says, with a very calm voice, and it's a lot of emotions, coping, accepting, and releasing, but you did the right thing. But did I? I ask.  

It's been a long while, Anya, seven whole years. Of course you did, of course. You needed to leave, to go and learn a new thing, you know it.

I baked and shaped my last breads there today, you know, I say and pull out of my bag an oval loaf of sourdough bread -- a batard -- I took from work. It smells sour and creamy, the time-old and visceral smell of good bread, and that's so very reassuring at the moment. The smell of these breads has always reminded me of my grandmother's well-used wooden salt-box (designed as Baba Yaga, the forest-dwelling deformed witch from Slavic folklore; this one was with a mortar, that's where the salt went). It had often been a centerpiece on my grandmother's dining table. I've got a baguette for you as well, your all-time favorite, I say with a stress on 'your'.

That's nice, thank you. But do something nice for yourself too today.

Something nice. I've been meaning to make a cherry clafoutis for a while now, maybe I should do that, I only need to pick up fresh cherries for it, yes, I'll do that. I'll get a kilo of fresh fat near-black staining cherries for a clafoutis. Only I won't make it. I'll eat the full kilo, berry by berry. Because fresh cherries are great like that. They make me very happy.

OK, I guess I'll get going, I say, wipe my cheeks dry again and get off the phone. I peel myself off the pavement, bump into a tourist with a camera a few steps away from my bike. Pardon me. Deep in my skull a headache is unfolding, the dull type. I take a deeper breath, still no better, it only pushes more salt out of my eyes. I put my sunglasses on, so no one sees the tears, unlock the bike to ride off.
 
Quick Flapjack Cherry Granola  
Adapted from Stirring Slowly, by Georgina Hayden

Serves 4

Since I don't trust myself around fresh cherries, I don't bother anymore to try and cook with them, at least for this summer. Dried cherries, however, are no problem, I can manage that. 

Why are you making a pancake granola? Anthony raised his eyebrows on a recent morning. Before I also didn't know that there is such a thing as a British flapjack and that it's not a thick pancake. The British understand flapjack as a chewy oatmeal cookie bar, and that's what the recipe in question refers to – good, chewy, toasty, crispy oats.

I tinkered a little bit with the recipe and came up with a formula (not that much different from the original) I'm particularly fond of. No cinnamon, but lemon zest; no vanilla extract but fresh vanilla bean seeds; runny honey with a neutral taste -- acacia honey works best here. The result is a pure, mild, well-rounded oatmeal flavour, a little savory, not undone by sweet dried fruit, with a few fresh and singing flavours (lemon zest and cherries) in between. 

 
1 Tablespoon flavourless oil
¼ teaspoon fresh vanilla bean seeds (from about half a vanilla bean)
125 grams rolled oats
grated zest of a small lemon (about ½ teaspoon)
50 grams dried cherries
50 grams dried figs
2 Tablespoons mixed seeds (pumpkin, sesame, poppy, sunflower) 
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt, such as fleur de sel
3 Tablespoon light neutral runny honey, such as acacia honey

Combine the oil, vanilla seends and lemon zest together in a medium-size non-stick pan with a good splash of water (4-5 Tablespoons) and place it on a medium heat. Scatter in the oats and stir it all together. Put the matching lid on and leave the oats to cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. While the oats are cooking, roughly chop the dried cherries and cut the figs into similar-size pieces.

When the oats have softened, remove the lid and add the seeds to the pan. Turn the heat up a little and toasts the oats and seeds for 2 minutes. Sprinkle in the salt and add the chopped dried fruit. Toss everything together and drizzle over the honey. Mix well and cook for 2-3 minutes until you have a golden chewy granola.

Leave in the pan for a few minutes to cool, then spoon over fresh berries and yogurt or leave to cool completely, and store in an airtight container until needed. It will surely keep well for up to 3 days, this much I can tell, maybe even longer, but it never lasts with me that long.

Variation

For a much brighter, sharper taste, use 1 Tablespoon pomegranate molasses to 2 Tablespoons runny honey instead of lemon zest. I must say I can't quite decide which version I like better. Depends on the day, I guess.

Than any other

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what's the first thing you say to yourself?” “What's for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?” “I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It's the same thing,” he said.

                                                    – A.A.Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

 

I haven't eaten since early afternoon. I had huevos rancheros around 11:00, and it was a wonderful feast. It felt particularly good to wolf it down on a Monday morning – and out in town. I don't normally go out for breakfast, but we happened to be in a neighborhood close to Bakers and Roasters and they do really good breakfast. It's always busy in there, even on a Monday there can be a waiting list. But we got lucky – a table for two just opened up. At first I can't decide what I want. There is a granola on the menu, and I'm a big one for granola. I like discovering different granolas. The problem is, I realized sometime ago, they are rather similar in a lot of places, and often not that interesting. It's an issue, it makes me wary of ordering granola in a restaurant or a café. Besides, I finally finished tweaking a recipe for pistachio and dried cherry granola and I'm pretty sure I like this granola better than I'll like any other for now. So I go back and forth between the eggs and the salads. I haven't had a good breakfast egg dish in a really long while, and huevos rancheros speak to me right now: crispy tortilla, Brazilian black beans, slightly melted cheese, two fried eggs, avocado, fresh tomato salsa and sour cream. So I chose that and asked for extra chorizo. Every bit was delicious.

Actually it was my second breakfast. I had toasted sourdough bread soon after I woke up at 8:00. I love sourdough toast. Today I had it with peanut and pistachio butter, and creamy honey. After I finished the last bits I thought of a new spread combination for next time I have toast for breakfast: white almond butter and the Italian apricot preserve I'd picked up at Casa del Gusto. Albicocche di Valleggia, it says on the jar. I picture the southern European sun and squint involuntarily. I can already taste this next toast in my mind's mouth: soft, crunchy, creamy, a little sweet, a little sour. I've never been to Italy and I really want to go. I take a post-it to write the idea down: almond butter + apricots. I'm religious about my toast. The crumb must remain chewy, but only deep down. On the surface and a little below it must be crisp and lightly golden, for the pleasure of the eyes, ears and teeth. I have found a perfect way to achieve that: I toast it once then turn it and toast it again, both times at a low setting. Seems to do the trick. 

It's almost 17:00. I'm starting to think more intensely about food, which means I'm hungry. It's not an unpleasant feeling. I like thinking about what I'll be eating next, or what I ate earlier. I won't be home till later tonight, so to cook a meal will by that point feel like waiting an eternity. I make do with two pillows of chewing gum for now – I don't like eating on the go; chewing is O.K.

Decided: I'm going to have the aforementioned granola for dinner, technically a third breakfast but at dinnertime. I'll only have to stop by a grocer for some yogurt. It has to be full-fat. I don't like low- or zero-fat anything.

Vanilla Bean Pistachio and Dried Cherries Granola

I found the original recipe in The New York Times Cooking recipes collection, and it comes from Daniel Humm, the chef of the Eleven Madison Park restaurant in Manhattan. Judging by the ingredients list it clearly was a recipe for a special cereal, a luxury granola. That said, it lacked to me I didn't know what, and I didn't just want to let it go, so I kept tweaking. I eschewed the sugar, upped the quantity of maple syrup as well as oats, added poppy seeds, fine-tuned the amount of salt, and finally, I added vanilla seeds, real, fragrant, wonderful vanilla seeds (not a vanilla extract or paste), and suddenly I had on my hands a granola that I'd like better than any other. Each bite offers a full exciting ride: savory, sweet, deep, lip-smacking, refreshing, soft, crunchy, nutty, and rich. It took me about twelve batches to get it right, but victory is mine. 

300 g rolled oats 
150 g shelled pistachio nuts
70 g unsweetened coconut flakes
50 g raw pumpkin seeds 
20 g poppy seeds 
7 g (1 teaspoon) fine sea salt
2 large vanilla pods (to give
about ½ packed teaspoon of
vanilla seeds) 
160 ml maple syrup
 80 ml extra virgin olive oil 
100 g dried cherries

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with baking paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, pistachio nuts, coconut flakes, pumpkin and poppy seeds, and salt.

Cut the vanilla pods in half and scrape out the seeds. In a small bowl, stir the vanilla seeds into the olive oil. This will help to disperse the vanilla seeds evenly throughout the oats mixture.

Using your hands, mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Tip the granola out onto the prepared baking sheet and spread in an even layer. Bake until fragrant and golden brown, between 35 and 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to ensure the granola bakes evenly. If it doesn't look entirely dry as you'd expect, it will firm up as it cools.

Remove the granola from the oven and stir in the dried cherries. Allow to cool to room temperature before transferring to an airtight container where it will keep for up to 3 to 4 weeks.

Yield: about 6 ½ cups

A soft morning

Every morning comes with a different face. 

The front door of a stately home on the canal opens and out comes a man with a dog, a boxer. The last of stars have melted into the pale, bleached morning sky not long ago. March, a winter's disciple, has faded, but at dawn breath could still turn into thin smoke. The man is wearing an olive-green corduroy hat, shoulders stooped under the weight of the early hour, and a hat, black, wide-rimmed, it eclipses his broad forehead. He leaves the lights on; the naked windows hide little. There are yellow roses on the wooden table and a shawl draped over a chair in the kitchen. 

Together they cross the narrow road, the dog strains the leash. He stops by the bridge and let's the animal roam around on its own, sniff at the cobblestones, the bycicles. There is a pack of cigarettes in his coat's chest pocket, he takes one out. He lights it, leans over the side of the bridge, his foot perched on the railing -- and disappears in his thoughts. Across the bridge two American girls, white teeth, wide smiles, are taking pictures of one another, sleepy, still canals and tilted houses a charming, European backdrop. A soft morning. 

The cigarette glows in the man's hand. He looks at it, long, as if he hasn't seen it before, as if he isn't even sure what it is. Suddenly he throws it on the ground, an act he doesn't expect himself. "Time for breakfast, pal," he says looking at the dog and adjusts his awkward hat.

He crosses the bridge and goes to a cafe around the corner, the dog by his side. 

Back on the bridge, a tendril of cigarette smoke stretches up.

Speaking of breakfasts, I need to tell you about this.

Hazelnut Cacao Nib Granola

Adapted from Whole-Grain Mornings, by Megan Gordon

Chances aren't slim you may have already found your favorite granola recipe (if you are into granola, that is), but if you haven't, not yet, let me recommend you try this one. Chances are big you'll stop searching. I did. I'm thinking of the best way to describe it and nothing more fitting than 'elegant' comes to mind. That or superlatives. I suppose 'elegant' is better. 

There is something viscerally right about the composition of oats, coconut flakes and oil, hazelnuts, salt, and maple syrup, united together by gentle heat and, once cool, fortified by cacao nibs. Cacao nibs! The precursor of chocolate! Of chocolate! Thank you, Megan Gordon!

I tweaked the recipe a little to find a point where, to me, it's at its most. In the end, walnuts were replaced by sunflower seeds, cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla completely left out, cashew nuts brought in, the amount of coconut oil halved, and the oven temperature lowered by a few degrees. 

A pure way to start the morning.

300 g rolled oats
60 g raw sesame seeds
50 g raw sunflower seeds
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel
120 ml maple syrup
60 g coconut oil, melted
35 g unsweetened coconut flakes
60 g raw hazelnuts
50 g raw cashew nuts
30 g cacao nibs

Warm the oven up to 150 C (300 F). Line a large rimmed baking sheet with baking paper.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, sesame and sunflower seeds, and salt. Add the maple syrup and coconut oil and using your hands mix the wet and dry ingredients evenly together. Tip the mixture out onto the prepared baking sheet and spread in an even layer.

Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and stir in the coconut flakes, hazelnuts, and cashew nuts. Send back into the oven and bake until the granola is fragrant and golden brown, for another 15 minutes. Stir once halfway through to make sure it bakes evenly. Let cool completely. At this point the granola may not look as toasty as you'd like it to be, but it will firm up as it cools. Stir in the cacao nibs. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 weeks.

Contradictions, or maybe not

Dear Reader, hello!

I’ve got lots to tell you, and to show too, so please pull up an armchair, yes, the one you see in the corner next to a crackling fireplace -- it gets chillier by the day over here, you know – help yourself to a chocolate tartlet, or a scone, or a brioche – don’t be shy, take as much as you want – and let’s chat. Or better yet, I’ll talk and you enjoy the buttery pastries, while a scratched gramophone that in my grandmother’s youth was bubbling up with life is now rasping Edit Piaf’s La Vie en Rose.

All right, where shall I start? Ah yes, in Song of Himself, Walt Whitman wrote: ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes)’. Clearly, he and I we didn’t know each other, but if we did, Walt Whitman would certainly say as much about me, because I always contradict myself. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Anyway, contradictory or not, here is what I do as of lately: I am doing my Master’s programme in English Metaphor with a selective course in Visual Arts and The American Poet, aim to become a professional food-writer, and work part-time in one of my beloved French bakeries in Amsterdam, Gebroeders Niemeijer, as a dishwasher. The last part requires a detailed explanation, I feel, so here goes…

There was a fleeting moment when I thought I wanted to study hospitality (although I had already discovered my enormous love for food by then, my desire to write about food and to study English to write about food better was not yet pronounced.) So after completing my Bachelor degree in linguistics I applied to a hotel school in the Netherlands. Entrance requirements were tough, but I got admitted --with one condition though. I had to gain some working experience in hospitality industry before the studies would begin. I had six months, from August 2007 to January 2008, to accomplish the mission. That is how I found myself working as a server in a restaurant of a well-known five-star hotel in Moscow (I spent a year in Moscow before finally moving to Amsterdam). I only lasted for three months, which nonetheless seemed like ten centuries to me.

The restaurant was high-end, yet I liked nothing about the place. To begin with, I disliked the atmosphere in the kitchen. Expensive food was cooked by people who for the most part seemed to be completely indifferent about what they were doing. It was cold in the kitchen, despite inferno temperatures emanating from the stoves and ovens. In the dining area, the mood was as chilly. Servers competed against one another for tips alone (unlike me, a few people wanted to work for food) and diners were all too snobbish. I felt disappointed; the place had discouraging vibes. As I got back home after exhausting early morning or late night shifts, my feet swollen and aching, I cried. I cried not because of tiredness, but because of poignant frustration about the whole experience. It was a vanity fair. It was soulless.

Eventually I quit, both my gig as a server and my registration in the hotel school. (The admission costs were increased to a level I couldn’t afford, which, as I think now, was only for the better since I am much happier hitting the books in metaphor, visual arts, etc, and aspiring to make food-writing my profession.)

In other words, I vowed I would never want to work in a restaurant kitchen again -- once bitten, twice shy. Since mid-August 2009 I’m in the professional food industry again, this time as a dish-washer. (Do I really contradict myself? Yes, I really do contradict myself, but what the heck.)

Gebroeders (‘Brothers’) Niemeijer is an artisan French bakery with an adjacent breakfast-/lunchroom. It was my first discovery soon after I arrived in Amsterdam a year ago.
Simple, homely, nourishing food, be it a steaming plate of savoury potato soup with Roquefort cheese; or a fresh, breathing with warmth baguette enrobing sweet, dripping with juices rings of chorizo, young green salad leaves and pickled something and sitting on a worn, slightly dented plate with tiny flowers around the rim seemed to tell me about the heartfelt warmth and passion of people who prepared it.

I didn’t know the cooks in person, yet through the food I was enjoying, I felt taken care of. I fell for the place, its food and people including. Hell, on one of my visits I even found myself thinking that if need be I would love to work here, helping out in the bakery, doing the dishes, whatever. The need presented itself in the form of a thinning wallet of mine – we students always seem to be on a cash diet , -- so I wrote the two brothers an e-mail in which I said as much (not about my wallet, but about my infatuation with the their place). A few days later I got an e-mail from Marco, one of the siblings, in which he asked me to come over for a chat. The rest you already know. Like I said, I’ve taken on a stint of a dish washer. I work from Friday to Sunday which means my weekends are my workdays, but I don’t mind. I do tons of dishes, and by the end of the day my feet feel woolen, my back rigid, my pale-pink nail polish crumbled, yet I don’t half mind that either. I think I feel so non-perplexed about the physical inconveniences because of my moments in the bakery. Last Sunday, for example, I pounded on a thick piece of pate sucree (sweetened short pastry) right from the fridge to soften it before rolling it out in an automatic dough sheeter, after which I was shown how to form tartlets. Simply put, you cut circles out of the dough, which you then garnish into oiled tartlet moulds. All this should be done at a lightning speed, because when warm, pate sucree is a royal pain to work -- it gets sticky and too brittle. I, of course, work at a snail pace. I take my time to form a perfect tartlet. Issa, the baking brother, says I should be doing this much faster. So I’m now learning by practice how to make flawless tartlets in no time which, well, takes time. As I said, by the end of the day, my back hurts, but my hands smell of butter, and vanilla, and lemon zest. I feel elated.

The fact that I get to snack on pistachio, mocca, walnut and chocolate macarons, and on financiers with deeply caramelized tops does help as well to combat bodily exertion. Moreover, after the bakery’s closing time I can take as much pastry or bread left unsold as I please.



And please myself I do – I bring boxes of fresh pastries back home. Once in solitude, I unpack the goodness, smell and grin at it, hedonistic smile on my face and a fiery glow (glow can be fiery, I like to imagine) in my eyes. Finally, I eat up the stuff. Moderation? Not lately. Not when a couple of puffy brioches seductively provoke in my mind visions of soft, grassy butter and fruit jam atop each piece.



But note this, Dear Reader: I may sin throughout the day, what with the rich, flaky croissants and all, but come next morning, and I am a virtuous individual again. I have granola for breakfast. And I’ll tell you what, this granola, drowned, if you are a top hedonist, in silky Greek yoghurt, or in milk, if you are a hedonist in moderation, is in fact no less luxurious than all those French pastries altogether. Ok, I’m exaggerating, but still you should believe me it’s very, very good. Actually, this one is the best granola I’ve ever had so far. Luke, this curry man, can attest to this testimony of mine since he ate the first batch I’d made in his kitchen faster than it would take a jet set to fly from, say, Amsterdam to Amsterdam South, which is a fraction of a couple seconds I believe . Deliciousness in question is Granola with Maple Syrup and Olive Oil by Nekisia Davis of Early Bird Foods.

True, the olive oil is somewhat unorthodox in the realm of breakfast cereals, yet it’s fully legitimate here. It lends the granola this savoury strut which, along with sweet flair of maple syrup, wakes up the whole mix and elevates it to a new taste level. Also, this granola doesn’t get lumpy: the oat and coconut flakes, as well as the nuts, are toasted to golden-brown perfection without being glued to each other. And when you push your hand through the cooled down mix and let it sift through your fingers, as you would a handful of silver dollars, it makes this soft rustling sound, like a whisper. In order to have such euphoria for breakfast, just make sure, say, in the evening before, to mix old-fashioned oats, raw pumpkin and sunflower seeds, coconut chips, pecans and a modicum of salt, and combine it all with olive oil, maple syrup and sugar. Into the preheated oven the whole mixture then goes where it sits for about 45 minutes or so, until it’s fragrant and toasted. If I were asked to compare granolas to clothes (what turn of mind somebody should be in to want me to do that, I don’t know), I would say it’s tasteful, elegant and sophisticated (must be the combination of savoury full-bodied olive oil with maple syrup), just like a small classic black dress that every woman should have in her possession. As is the latter, this granola is a must to have too. Later into the day, it is obligatory for us all to enjoy the tartlets imbued with silky chocolate ganache or crowded with toasted gems of buttery walnuts.

(I now think I’m not actually that contradictory. All I do – braving English linguistic science, studying poetry and visual arts, rounding off my internship in the Time Out Amsterdam magazine, and working as a dish-washer – is in fact to become a better food-writer.)

Finally... Granola with Olive Oil and Maple Syrup

Adapted from Nekisia Davis of Early Bird Foods, via Martha Stewart

Yields approximately 7 cups

The recipe has you use 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar, but I find that amount makes things all too sweet. Not that I mind too sweet, no, except when in granola. Which is why I intend to go with 1/4 cup of sugar next time, or even 1/8.

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds, hulled
1 cup raw sunflower seeds, hulled
1 cup coconut chips, or coconut flakes
1 1/4 cup raw pecans, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup fragrant extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
Coarse salt

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degress C).

2. In a large bowl, combine the oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut, pecans, syrup, olive oil, sugar, and 1 teaspoon salt. Spread the mixture in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Transfer to the oven and bake, stirring every 10 mins to ensure even browning, until granola is toasted, about 45 minutes. Doneness can be tested by breaking an oat flake (just be sure not to burn your fingers): if it breaks easily with a subtle crisp sound, the granola is done, even when it still may feel a bit soft; the mix will crisp as it cools.

3. Remove granola from the oven and season with more salt to taste (I think this step can be optional). Let cool. The granola can be stored in an airtight container for up to 1 month (although I can hardly imagine somebody may have that ferrous willpower).