Familiar but different

It smells of black tea leaves, steeped and left since dinner in the pot on the kitchen counter. The night air.

I'm at knifepoint, and yet I'm mostly concerned that my feet are cold. I cringe.

– It really feels it should be a different time of year, don't you think? I say to a man who is about to, what, rob me? I'm really cold, I add. I draw out 'really' and shuffle from one foot to the other. It's close to freezing. My eyes are watering from a flu.

– Where have you been? The man asks me.

I'm looking at his sharp jawline first, then at the knife blade at my throat. It's beautiful, engraved with a female silhouette. I feel more relief when I notice the birthmark on his neck, right above where the collar of his shirt grips it tightly. It's dark out, but I can make out its color – merlot. A wine stain on the pristine white tablecloth. I saw it before.

– I know you, I say slowly and pause after 'you'.

Suddenly there is a shriek, and another, they are coming from around the corner. It's loud and unexpected and makes me jump. Take it easy, must be a sea gull, he says and pulls away the knife. It sounds human to me, like someone is laughing, I say and look around. There is no one in sight.

– I know you do. Is there something you wanted to tell me last time?

I know the man, I'm sure now. Before, I sat next to him on the train. He was asleep and his phone kept ringing. I remember he had on a nice perfume – citrus fruit and incense smoke. I was studying his exposed neck. It felt intruding but exciting to be so near to someone's live artery and stare at it uninterruptedly and with impunity. The birthmark was close to it.

– You smelled of knives, I wanted to tell you then.

– Why knives?

– My metaphor for danger, I guess.

– I would have liked to hear that. What stopped you?

– I woke up.

Another shriek, strong enough to shatter glass. Someone is patting me on the shoulder, asks me if I'm O.K.

– Wake up, Anya, wake up. Are you O.K.?

I open my eyes; my forehead is covered in sweat. Anthony is sitting on the edge of the bed, looking concerned. It's getting light out, close to a sunrise.

– I had a strange dream, really strange, I say to him, drawing out 'really' again.

– I'm making coffee. I think you'd like some?

Bitter Orange and Walnut Bars (Mabroosha)
 

Adapted from The Gaza Kitchen, by Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt

Makes about 24 pieces

This one here is a very interesting recipe, no need to draw out 'interesting' – only, maybe, 'very'. Interesting because in essence it's a crumble kind of thing, except that all crumbles I know of are butter-based, and for mabroosha a combination of butter and olive oil is used, with a bigger emphasis on olive oil than butter. I like recipes like this: familiar but different.

Also, try to say mabroosha and not feel comforted by the sound at the same time, a bunch of consonants and vowels that conspire to sound, to me, like babushka.

Actually, mabroosha means 'grated' in Arabic, and that's because the recipe will have you grate half of the dough over the jam and nuts. It's good if you have a medium-sized cheese grater for it. Bitter orange marmalade is a tradition choice, but any kind of jam can be used for mabroosha.
 

Of course it goes very well with coffee. It crunches pleasantly under the teeth, and has soft pockets of jam, is sweet but olive oil pulls it a little towards savoury, plus cinnamon, orange zest and rosewater, it's got a lot of good stuff, this great little mabroosha.

380 g (3 cups) all-purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

220 g (1 cup) sugar
Pinch of salt
60 g (4 Tablespoons) butter, softened to room temperature

180 ml (¾ cup) olive oil

2 medium eggs
1 Tablespoon rosewater

2 teaspoons orange zest

160 g (1 ½ cup) bitter orange marmalade
100 g (1 cup) finely chopped walnuts

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F). Thoroughly grease a 33 x 23 cm (13 x 9 inch) rectangular pan.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. To this, add the butter, olive oil, eggs, rosewater and orange zest. Knead together until they are well combined. The resulting dough should not be sticky. If the dough appears too crumbly, add a little more rosewater. If it appears to be too wet, add a little more flour. Divide the dough into two equal parts.

Using the palm of your hand, spread out one part of the dough in the prepared pan. Spread the jam or marmalade evenly over the dough. Mix the walnuts with the cinnamon and top the dough with this nut mixture. Using a medium-sized cheese grate, shred the remaining dough evenly over the jam and nuts.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the crumbs are slightly golden and the jam is bubbling out. Let it cool, then divide it into bars. 

You'd have thought

“You mean you've never had rhubarb?” I say, incredulous, and pick up at the greengrocer's shop a bunch of rhubarb stalks, crimson and lanky, the leaves tightly furled. I stress 'never' in such a way you'd have thought my friend has just admitted never having had water. “And you are twenty-seven!” I don't know why I had to bring up age. As if one's placement on a time scale has anything to do with it. How old was I to try rhubarb for the first time? Twenty-five, I remember that. It was a simple rhubarb compote, I remember that too. I made it in my brand-new round Le Creuset (the colour of kiwi). I've had it for eights years now. It was the smallest in stock at the kitchenware store and it was on sale, and that's how I could afford it on my then student budget. I had just moved to Amsterdam. The shop assistant, a stocky young guy, described to me the merits and advantages of a bigger cast-iron pot, also a Le Creuset, but I recall saying I was going to use it to cook for myself only, so the smallest one would do fine, solo meals, you see. I instantly wondered if I didn't sound flirty for saying that, because I really didn't mean to sound that way. In the rhubarb compote I threw in some dried lavender flowers, I remember that too. I must have enjoyed the thing, but I assume that now, because, strangely, I don't remember if I did. I have to bend the rhubarb stalks to fit them in my shopping bag, one of which snaps and dislodges a fibrous deep purple thread. It hangs off the stem like a broken violin string. 

The crimson liquid, thick, almost viscose, is dripping through the sieve, separates from the rhubarb flesh, soft and slithery. I love the smell of roasted rhubarb. It smells fresh and clean, sharp even. The crimson flow slows down now, goes at a steady pace, like an IV drip. Arms crossed, I lean with my hips against the sink and wait until the rhubarb is fully drained. I'm putting together a rhubarb polenta cake. I have already rubbed the butter into the polenta with my fingertips. I almost got the wrong polenta meal at the supermarket – I needed the coarse polenta but distractedly pulled the fine off the shelf. Excuse me, I said to the cashier and to the ten people behind me in line at the check-out, then ran back to the grains aisle to exchange the bag. I wasn't leaving with the wrong polenta, I'm sorry. The whole point of this cake is the contrast of the gritty sugary buttery crust and the soft tart refreshing rhubarb.

What a wonderful thing! – I'd written in the margin next to the recipe after the first try, three years ago – I like how the coarse polenta requests a little extra work from the mouth, that it is a perfect foil to the fleshy rhubarb. I went on: Instead of cinnamon, which I believe would be lovely here, I used a vanilla bean, and will continue to do so, and in lieu of an orange, a lemon. But refrain adding either to the fruit itself, its clean taste is another nice contrast to the vanilla- and lemon-scented crust. And why is there no salt amongst the dry ingredients? A little of it should only zoom in on the flavours. And on: By the way, the soft, moist pink of this rhubarb looks like pure sex...

I love this cake, how it made its way into my memory and lodged itself there, solidly, despite the fact that until today I haven't made it as much as twice. That said, believe it or not, but I never stopped thinking about it. And I stress 'never' in such a way you'd have thought I've just admitted never having had a meal.

I set the kettle on for coffee and ask Anthony if he would like a slice with his cup. Yes, he'd give it a try, he says.

“I hate rhubarb. I was six when I tried it first. It used to grow in my backyard. My friends would eat it, they would eat it like a candy, can you imagine this, but I can't stand it. The only thing I hate more in my desserts than rhubarb is lemon. But this is not bad, it's actually nice, I quite like it. I won't finish my slice, though. Because I can't stand it.”

I get out for a moment to take the trash down. The slice is gone when I'm back. I know it's not in the trash bin, it can't be – I haven't yet placed a new bag in it.

I really love this cake.

 

Rhubarb Polenta Cake

Adapted from Ripe, by Nigel Slater

For the filling
500 g (1 pound) rhubarb
50 g (heaped 1/4 cup) unrefined cane sugar
4 tablespoons water

For the crust
125 g (¾ cup) coarse polenta
200 g (1 ½ cups plus 1 tablespoon) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
150 g (heaped 3/4 cup) unrefined cane sugar, plus 1 tablespoon more for sprinkling
1 plump vanilla pod, seeds only
grated zest of a small lemon
150 g (10 tablespoons) butter, cut in small pieces
1 large egg
3 tablespoons milk

Lightly oil or butter a 20cm (8-inch) springform cake pan. Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) and put a baking sheet in the middle of it to get hot. Trim the rhubarb, cut each stem into short lengths, and put them in a baking dish. Scatter over the sugar and water and bake for twenty minutes, until the rhubarb is soft but still holds its shape. Remove the rhubarb pieces from the dish and put them in a colander or large sieve to drain. (Reserve the rhubarb juices to serve with the cake.) You can prepare the rhubarb filling up to one day in advance.

Combine the polenta, flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Add the vanilla seeds, lemon zest and butter. Rub the butter into the polenta with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse rubble. Alternatively, blitz the mixture in a food processor. But really, do it manually. Not only it's a cinch to do, saves on washing up, is a peaceful thing to do, yes yes yes, but rubbing the butter into the polenta mixture with your fingers will also help to release the essential oils in the lemon zest and distribute the vanilla beans more evenly. Break the egg into a small bowl and mix with the milk, then blend into the crumble mix. Take care not to overmix; it's done when the dry and wet ingredients have come together to form a soft, slightly sticky dough. If it isn't a little sticky, add a touch more milk

Slightly wet your hands and press about two-thirds of the mixture into the prepared cake pan, pushing it 2cm up the sides. Make sure there are no large cracks or holes. Place the drained rhubarb on top, leaving a small rim around the edge. Crumble lumps of the remaining polenta mixture over the fruit with your fingertips, but don't worry if the rhubarb isn't all covered. Scatter over 1 tablespoon of unrefined cane sugar.

Put on the hot baking sheet and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the edges and the crust turn deep golden brown. Mine was done after about 35 minutes, so I'd suggest to start checking from then on. Cool before removing from the pan. Serve in slices, with coffee.

Spicy and wonderful

"Martha, wait! Wait! Martha!"

To go through the city on a Sunday morning as the hands on the clock tremble towards 5 a.m. is to hear its drunken breath, loud and erratic. Like fish to bait, partygoers gather for refreshments around the lighted stand of a hot-dog vendor. Soiled napkins and empty plastic bottles are strewn across the street, a whiff of mustard floats around. I zigzag to dodge swaying figures ahead. Past them the streets are motionless again.

Canal houses, tall and thin, 'anorexic', loom over the night's last hours. Inside, their inhabitants are embedded in delicious sleep. Outside, a couple is tangled in a difficult moment. The girl crosses a road, stumbling over a curbstone. No coat on, it looks like she has exited from wherever she was unexpectedly, on an impulse. The guy is half-a-minute behind her. He starts to run, but stumbles every other step, cries her name, wants her to wait. In response, she will only take off her heels and charge forward, away, feet getting pounded by wet, uneven cobbles, hair loose, an easy target for the wind. She must be cold. I am. 

"Martha, Martha! Wait!"

I turn left and go over a bridge. My bike starts to creak like a rusty swing set. A man -- he must be in his mid-fifties -- gets out from a house with red-lighted windows. He shuts the door behind but doesn't walk off right away. I can make out his grin -- he has a golden front tooth -- as he adjusts his pants, zips the flyer. I wonder if he feels emboldened by the carnal act he just bought or by night itself. 

Wind continues to tousle the surface of the canals, but its grip is softer, like that of a lover who, in an argument, shakes you by your arms but doesn't mean to hurt. These are the last days of winter.

I arrive at work. I switch on the lights, then the ovens. I tore myself out of bed more than an hour ago, but my brain remains awash with 'toxic' slumber. I make myself an espresso, the buzz of the coffee machine carries a promise of a pleasant rush. Languidly it pours in a cup. Behind the glass wall window and door shouts erupt: a group of teenagers passes by, one of them staggers and falls, the rest laugh. The espresso is ready, it looks velvety and smooth. I'll have it with a piece of ontbijtkoek, spicy and wonderful. 

For a minute it's quiet. I can hear my own breath. 

Ontbijtkoek (ont-bite-cook)

Ontbijtkoek ('breakfast cake'), alias kruidkoek ('spice cake'), is the Dutch honey spice bread, or pain d'épices. As the name implies, it's largely a breakfast material around here, but in no way should it be limited to the morning consumption only. In no way! 

There are numberless variations of ontbijtkoek, as to be expected from any national staple. Some use eggs, some others butter or oil, sugar can often be involved. The one I'd like to share with you today is, to me, the purest of the form, made mainly of rye flour, honey, and spices. Mainly because there are also water and baking powder going in the assemblage, but that's it.

I got the recipe in question from my coworker Gino (21), whom I like to call Ginger, who in turn got it from our ex-coworker Tim (29), whom both Ginger and I used to call Angry Baker or Diva (depending on his disposition on a given day). (Hi Tim! You are missed.) 

Having mixed the rye flour, honey and water first, you, then, should leave the resulting mass that will very much resemble a ball of Play-Doh, only stickier and better smelling, for at least a day before working in the spices, baking powder, and more honey. The dough is going to be stiff and gummy, and to mix it well all spoons, whisks and spatulas should be forsaken in favor of your hands.

As far as spices are concerned, I'm apprehensive that a requisite ontbijtkoek or speculaas spice mix, on the Dutch ground available at any supermarket, isn't quite obtainable elsewhere. If you have it, you need 10 grams of it. Below I'll write down the equivalent in the constituent spices. Play around with the quantities. Maybe you like it slightly more aniseed-y or cardamom-y, you know? Another idea: five-spice powder. I think it works well in ontbijtkoek. Note, though, that it's considerably more peppery than speculaas spice mix, there maybe a mild tickling of the black pepper on your tongue in the aftertaste. 

I don't know where Tim, a baker extraordinaire, had gotten this recipe, but I'll stick with it for good. Chewy, moist, sweet just so, dense, dark and spicy. Gets better by the day, too. Wrapped in foil, it keeps well for at least a week, maybe even longer, but I can't tell, it never lasts as much with me.

P.S. Ontbijtkoek lends itself to butter, no question. But I like it plain and with coffee, always coffee.

P.P.S. A word on honey: you need runny honey for this -- and the darker the type, the deeper the flavor, the better. So far I've been saturating my ontbijtkoek with wild flowers honey. My next target is buckwheat honey. In other words, suit yourself.

Yield: one 24-cm (9-inch) loaf 

490 grams runny honey (see headnotes), divided use
180 grams water
420 grams rye flour
16 grams baking powder
3 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
a good pinch of ground aniseed (optional)

Sift the rye flour into a large mixing bowl, pouring back into the bowl any bits of grain that may remain in the sieve.

In a medium saucepan, combine the water and the first 330 grams of honey, and bring to a rolling boil. Immediately take the saucepan off the fire and pour its contents into the rye flour. Start mixing with a wooden spoon but finish by hand. Note: the mixture is very hot, so you need to wet your hands in cold water before you start 'the kneading' and one time or two during. At the end you should have a homogeneous ball of honey and rye flour. 
Place it in a small bowl, cover with plastic and keep at room temperature for 1-2 days.

When ready to bake, warm up the oven to 175 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Line a standard 24-cm (9-inch) baking tin with baking paper, leaving a little overhang throughout. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine the baking powder and spices. Add the remaining 160 grams of honey together with the rye flour ball. Mix well by hand, making sure there are no flour lumps or any unmixed elements lurking around. At this point the mixture is very sticky, almost like industrial glue; keep a small bowl of water handy to dip your hands in as you meld the stuff together. 

Manually, force the mixture into the prepared baking tin. Lightly wet your hands, push the mixture into the corners of the tin and smooth out the surface. Bake for 45-50 minutes. After the first 20-minute mark, turn the tin and cover it loosely with baking paper. Check for doneness after the 40-minute mark. Usually it needs another 5-10 minutes. When a toothpick or a skewer comes out clean, remove the loaf from the oven. Let it cool for another 10 minutes, then remove from the tin by lifting the edges of the baking paper up. When cool enough to handle, peel off the paper. Good luck fighting off the urge to cut right in!

They have arrived

1979. My mother is a music student (piano). There is a tour to Bulgaria organized by her conservatory, and she applies to go. The application process involves an evaluation talk with a Komsomol commission, the members of which will have to decide if she is trustworthy enough to leave the country's borders. (To Bulgaria! So pro-communist then that it was known in the internal circles as an unofficial Soviet republic at the time!) In the end, it's a no. It's all unspoken, but she is dressed in clothes that look too Western (where does she get those from?); her last (maiden) name ends with -ovich and is therefore Jewish?

1989. My mother, now thirty one, is on a plane to Vilnius, Lithuania. Together with my late grandmother she is going to buy a luggage-ful of men's and women's clothes and maybe some footware to be sold among friends and acquaintances. Those goods are as close to Western as one can get. They are one of a kind in Shakhty and go fast. (From this trip I, then five, saw two summer dresses with short lantern sleeves -- one dress with butterflies and the other with chamomile flowers -- and a pack of Donuld Duck bubble gum.)  There followed two more Vilnius-bound trips, now alone. It would be alright but for one thing. My mother kept bringing the nicest looking attire as opposed to the better-priced one, and convinced that such approach disserved the "business", and besides, a mucisian would never know how to negotiate numbers, my late grandmother, a natural enterpreneur, "dismissed" my mother off her duties as a buyer. And so, Vilnius was as far abroad as my mother ever got to, and considering that back then Lithuania was still a part of the USSR, technically it wasn't even abroad.

The furthest my father went was Eastern Russia. No enteprenueral venture, this was his latest month-long work trip, in the grasp of winter, and the most memorable part of the month for him was seeing the endless Siberian taiga from the plane on his way back home.

This afternoon my parents flew in to Amsterdam for a ten-day visit. We were on the phone last night to iron out all the details -- what's English for this and that, what to say to a customs officers, and other such things -- and I could hear they were excited, a little proud even. I understand why. They are both in their fifties now. For two thirds of their lives a possibility to go abroad had been unimaginable because of the ideology and politics, then for another third because of the poor economy. For a change, I'm on the receiving end today and they have arrived. (Big thanks to the airport staffer who kindly walked them to the passport control after they had wandered off into transit zone and with an intention to collect the luggage stood in line for a flight to Mexico City.)
  
There will be important museums and the glimmer of canals and interesting faces and tall, tilted houses to look at and around. They will probably see Olivia the Cat Lady, and, with a little bit of luck, catch a glimpse of The Butt-Naked Man (I haven't seen him in a long while.) But so far, I cooked an Indian meal and baked banana bread for them tonight. They didn't have a banana bread like this before, I don't think. Heck, I didn't have a banana bread like this before either.

Here is what's unusual about it. First: instead of banana mush there is banana mash inside this one. Nigel Slater -- whose recipe it is and whose latest book, Kitchen Diaries II, in vein with his others, is magic! -- doesn't crush bananas into a smooth puree. He mashes them, ripe, almost sickly, with a fork to a lumpy state. This is smart, because later, when the bread is baked, these lumps will be those pleasant chunks of the moist and fragrant fruit that I always miss in a banana bread. (O how I'm upset with those banana breads whose only ties to a banana is in the title.) Then, there is chocolate, and its amount here is so right that it doesn't overpower banana flavor one bit. What it does is mingle with those banana lumps mid-mouthful and excite the palate. What's good for banana besides chocolate? Caramel. Its notes are here too, thanks to muscovado sugar.

Nigel Slater's Chocolate Muscovado Banana Cake (Bread) 

Adapted from Kitchen Diaries II, by Nigel Slater

Yield: 1 loaf

I will avoid the discussion of whether it's bread or cake, this. It's all in the baking vessel, isn't it? Commonly, cake comes from a baking tin and bread from a loaf pan. But seeing that Slater christens it as chocolate muscovado cake and bakes it as a loaf, I'll go ahead and say this: no matter. To me, banana bread rolls off the tongue, and banana cake does not. But never mind.

If you have the book, you will notice I upped vanilla extract to two teaspoons here. For me, a teaspoon is somewhat unnoticed amongst such heavy weights.

250 g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder
125 g butter, softened
235 g muscovado or dark brown sugar
3-4 very ripe bananas (400 g peeled weight)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
100 g dark chocolate

Line a standard-size loaf tin (24cm*12cm*7cm) with baking paper, leaving a little overhang throughout. Heat the oven to 180 C (350 F). Sift the flour and baking powder together.

In a bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. The mixture should be lumpy. Stir in the vanilla extract. Chop the chocolate into small pieces the size of fine gravel.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs until incorporated. Stir in the bananas and chocolate. Gently fold the flour and baking powder into the banana batter. Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin and bake, rotating the tin halfway through, for about fifty minutes. Check for doneness by inserting a metal skewer into the centre. If the skewer comes out moist but clean the bread (cake) is ready. If not, put the bread (cake) back in the oven for a few more minutes and cover the surface with foil.

  
Leave the bread (cake) in the tin to settle and cool for 15 minutes, then remove from the tin by lifting the baking paper up and out. Cool some more before carefully peeling off the paper. Serve cool, in thick (!) slices. Wrapped in foil, keeps for up to a week.

A peculiar month

Advisory note: this post contains verbal images of a spitfire cat lady and a butt-naked roller-skater (of an unidentifiable age). If you have an impressionable and sensitive mind, read on anyway -- there will be dark chocolate almond butter cups as well.

February has been a peculiar month. First, I angered a cat lady. I'll call her Olivia here, since I don't want to anger her some more by disclosing her real name without a permission, not that I think she reads my blog or something. Technically Olivia is a bag lady, with a noticeable preference for pink garments, winter headwear year round, and sweat pants tucked into the knee-length socks that from a distance look like a pair of galife breeches. I know her from my work where she is a fixture, in that she comes in every morning at a quarter past eight, puts down her two neatly-packed standard-size suparmarket bags next to the cupboard, and depending on the day, goes back out or sits down for a cup of coffee and a knitting session. She's been doing so for more than four years, although earlier she used to say she would go to the countryside after the baby's been born. She never explained whose baby it was or when it was due, and she doesn't mention her plans to move anymore. French, English, and Dutch are in her full command (really), and if you ask her she will tell you a lot about cats. It is is why we call her Olivia the Cat Lady. That and because of a lasting bond she formed with our bakery cat, Marie, who is sadly no longer there on the grounds of being outlawed, which hasn't detered Olivia from bringing her gifts of wrapped Kleenex and canned cat food up to this day. Miaow.

For the most part, I think Olivia is angelic. Except a rare moment earlier this month when she asked me if I knew the meaning of my name. I should have lied and said yes, because I never want to see, never again, Olivia angry. Not bacause I think anger is a cell-killer, but because she looks evil when angry. And evil Olivia the Cat Lady looks like this: she turns around to face the subject, porches her arms on her sides, tilts her face downwards, and looking up from under the gray eyebrows, pierces you with the eyes that a minute ago were blue and now steely. As her eyebrows raise into two carets, her chin moves forward to expose a couple stray teeth, and her tongue, finding no dental objection, slithers out mid-word while she says, in high tones: "You should know what your name means. It's not making me happy now." For a second her face looked like it was pulling itself apart, upwards and down-, and I got worried that a hand might thrust out of her throat to strangle me. I like Olivia non-angry better. (She later told me it's a flower, but I'm not sure about that.  Anyway, we are good now.)

Next, I got smacked in my face. By a drunkard. With a rose.  Things like this ordinarily happen on a Saturday morning, around 5 a.m. That's when the party goers take to the streets and fill up the roads, sidewalks and bike lanes in their search of the right way, mingling thereby with those driven outwards at such an hour by the call of their professional duties. I myself stopped on a few occassions to tell the appreciative lost how to get to the Central Station, for example. Turns out I was testing my luck all those times by breaking the unspoken rule of the sober: ignore the heavily drunk. But, one lives to learn -- or in my case, one gets smacked to learn. When this scrawny teenager, balancing precariously on the sidewalk ledge, waved at me to inquire if he could ask me something  I had no misgivings to stop and hear him out. He had a rose-holding friend with him, equally drunk, but the opposite of scrawny. It transpired that they simply needed a cigarette. I simply had none. Which simply explains the smack. But still...

One more: a butt-naked roller-skater. I was on my bike carving my way to work (again!) through a dark, early weekday morning when my path converged with his. Oy! Because I wasn't expecting to see anybody's rear end exposed in the middle of a road in the city centre, despite it being Amsterdam, and because he was still a block away from me, I gave the roller-skater the benefit of the doubt and attributed his well-outlined tooshes to, you know, a pair of Spandex. Closer, and the truth was revealing. Besides the roller skates, his whole getup was compounded of a swimming cap, a pair of goggles (in the dark!), and a pair of sunburnt-red thongs. When I caught up with him, he slowed down to give me the right of way, and not looking back off I went. I later heard the man is sort of a local celebrity, roller-skating the streets butt-naked for years. From what I saw he is probably in his upper fifties or lower sixties, but what do I know? The fact that I saw him only now makes me think that Amsterdam is finally opening up its true gems for me. And if so, who knows what I can see next...

And one more: dark chocolate almond butter cups. This is from the department of good finds. Taking no longer than ten minutes to make and a bit more to set, they help February to go off with a bang. Themselves they are here to stay. The confection is purely what it is: dark chocolate that crisps up to enwrap in a frilly cup a blob of good almond butter. The latter is only slightly reinforced by honey and powdered sugar to hold its shape, but I also crushed up an amaretti cookie (a surplus from last Christmas) and grated half a tonka bean (I got a few from a friend, years ago now) to go in the lot, for good measure. A minute pinch of sea salt on top, and one tiny cup cinches you good and thorough. The best part for me? The way the thin layer of chilled chocolate cracks under my teeth and gives way to the filling inside, which in itself is a mini playground for the tongue, what with the cookie nibs and pieces and an occasional shard of almond, all in one knob. Try to resist. I should constantly have one handy to appease Olivia the Cat Lady if she loses her cool on me again, but these cups are best eaten cold, so I probably won't.

Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups

Adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen
Yield: 12 mini-cups

First few times I made these, I invariably had a good bit of chocolate left over (a perfect thing to spread a hunk of fresh baguette with, by the way). Could be the paper forms I use are smaller, but forcing more chocolate into the cups to use it all up only made the top thicker than the bottom, which I didn't like. I reduced the amount of chocolate altogether.

An amaretti cookie (store-bought) is not a must here, but I highly recommend it for the crunch. Give it a couple good bashings, but be careful to not pulverize it. Tonka bean is completely optional, although it imparts such an interesting flavor, a cross between vanilla and almonds and cinnamon...

If you have a mini-muffin tin, use it to help the cups hold their shape. But without the tin everything works out just as well. I use baking cups 35-mm (1.4-inch) in diameter.

And, these little things are really at their best cold. Their chocolate encasing cracks just so when chilled, such a joy!

150 g (5 oz) dark chocolate (70 % cocoa solids)
150 g (5 oz) organic almond butter
2 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp table salt
1 amaretti cookie, crushed (optional)
Tonka bean, a few generous gratings (optional)
Fleur de sel, for topping

Break the chocolate into small pieces and let melt in a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl shouldn't touch the water). Stir to make sure it's completely melted and smooth.

In a small bowl, mix the almond butter together with the honey, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and amaretti cookie and tonka bean (if using). The filling should be firm enough to roll into a ball. Depending how smooth or runny your almond butter is, you might want to add a bit more honey and powdered sugar to seize the filling up.

Place the liners on a large and flat (!) plate or in a mini-muffin tin. Working with one liner at a time, poor in a teaspoon of chocolate on the bottom. Tilt and twist around so that the chocolate coats at least one-third of the sides of the liner. Repeat with the remaining cups. Scoop out a teaspoon of the filling, roll it gently between your palms into a ball, give it a slight press-down and put in the middle of the cup. Repeat. Poor another teaspoon of the chocolate over the almond butter ball, and tilt and twist around so the chocolate covers the filling completely. Repeat with the remaining cups. Sprinkle a tiny pinch of fleur de sel on top of each one and send off in the fridge to set.

Keep in a container, covered and chilled. The cups will stay good for up to a week.

Hundreds of them

I'm twenty-eight and so far I've given a ton of thought to the matter of what foodstuff I just wouldn't feel comfortable without. I wouldn't align such meditation with the ubiquitous desert island or doomsday scenarios, no. It's more of a benign pondering about a bite of what I, a serious and devoted eater, would be happy to have on any given day, come what may. In general terms, I can't do without fruit. But: there is fruit and then there is fruit, by which I mean there is fruit and there are...apples. One, two, three apples a day -- that's for me. Of course, of course I wouldn't collapse on the floor in tears if there is none, oh no, I wouldn't, especially if there are slurpy, oil-coated fried noodles around, or spicy chana punjabi, or cake, yes.  Yet, should one thing be stripped off my plate for good, please, for fruit's sake, may it not be apples.

But look, don't think I'm so noble. My views don't stand unwavered. Every summer I run away with the circus of fresh berries and stone fruits thoroughly trimming my old allegiances to the bone. It surely is joy to frolic in the sun with the summer's ruby-cheeked and gentle offsprings, and it would make me such a big liar to say I would never not do it -- I'm not so prudent (who is?). But even then, ask me what my all-time favorite is, and apples I'll say. But wait, it's not because I'm so healthy either. I don't find it outrageous at all to start my day with a slab of one cake and to finish with another. Not to take away from the nutritional value of cake, but you know what I mean.

My fondness for apples -- beyond their crunch, and the way their skin splits open under my teeth, and their sweet and tart flesh, and how they quench my thirst  -- may have something to do with longing. Ivan Bunin wrote about such kind of longing in his Antonov Apples. I was fifteen to read the story for the first time. I didn't pick up much on Bunin's nostalgia for the times of land-owners and their peasants, but I did smell from the pages that honey and befallen leaves and ripe apples in the thinning autumnal Russian countryside, and that longing of his, not the ideological kind but the physical pulling in the gut, was somehow -- through the obsolete words, and the barking of a stray dog below my windows, and the air around me heavy with the smoke and the scent of decaying leaves -- also mine. Mine, because I, too, longed.

There had been a year earlier when my grandparents' apple trees bore the unexpected bounty of late harvest fruit, and so a lot of it was stored in wooden crates for winter. My cousins and I got a couple of crates each. Every day while my fruit stash lasted I popped out onto my parents' balcony where the crates sat to pick up a few apples, each not larger than a tennis ball, in the morning and a few at night. Those that hadn't yet become wizened and started to smell of a cheap cider were as crisp as air on clear and frosty days and had a vague scent of tea roses. I devoured hundreds of them, already reaching for the next while only a few bites into the first. As if I knew that I should -- what if next year the apple trees wouldn't bear fruit at all, or the year after my grandparents would sell their dacha. As if devouring those apples meant to devour the barking of a dog at dawn, the cotton fog lifting slowly off the ground, the image of my grandfather trying to knock the fruit off the brunches with his cane, the soft and quiet sun...

I don't mean to say that every apple I hold now sends me down memory lane and into that place where a continuous anticipation for, and apprehension of, the moments to come competes with a constant longing for the moments that passed. That would be overwhelming. But eating an untoward amount of apples appeared to be somewhat habit-forming for me -- I'm glad things didn't go down the aversion road -- which is fine with me seeing my predilection for cake three times, or more, a day (see above).

Apple and Spelt Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

These are my favorite muffins. To communicate how much I like them, let me tell you this: if nobody ever invented cake (again, see above), I would never complain to spend the rest of my life with only these muffins around. That's how much.

A few years ago I teamed up with a food photographer to do a project together. We brainstormed and agreed to play around spelt, now that it's reliving its former glory here in Holland. My task was to develop a number of recipes utilizing the grain in its various forms, and I wouldn't be myself, you understand, if I didn't do something with apples. The project didn't sell, but it was a good experience for me anyway. Last week I unearthed this one recipe and tinkered with it some more, and whoa, fully loaded with spelt flour, apples (!), spices, citrus, and oats, these muffins, nutty, and wholesome, and fragrant, and moreish, knocked me off my feet.

Often baked goods with spelt flour have a dry reputation, and I had a fear that completely foregoing conventional wheat flour this time around could put my muffins at great risk, but I shouldn't have worried so much. A few tweaks here and there -- largely, pairing baking powder with baking soda and using vegetable oil in place of butter -- and these little darlings revealed the interior that's tender and moist, and most importantly, it stays so. If you let it to, that is. 

I noticed at my health food store that spelt flour comes in two forms: refined and whole-grain. So you know, for this recipe I used the refined type.

Ok, let's do it.

260 g (9 oz) spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
60 g (2 oz) rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon table salt
130 g (4.5 oz) sugar
zest of 1 medium lemon
zest of 1 lime
2 large eggs
80 ml (1/3 cup) buttermilk
80 ml  (1/3 cup) non-fragrant vegetable oil
300 g (10 oz) peeled and coarsely grated apples (from about 2 1/2 medium apples, such as Elstar)

Warm the oven to 180 C (350 F) and oil a 12-pocket muffin tin.

Sieve together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. In a blender or a clean coffee grinder, coarsely grate the oats. Add to the flour, along with the salt, and mix well.

In a separate mixing bowl, rub the citrus zest into the sugar. Break in the eggs and beat on high speed for two minutes. Mix in the buttermilk and oil.

Incorporate the flour mixture into the egg and sugar mixture. The lot will appear to be somewhat dry, but fear not. Fold in the apples; their juices will bring in more moisture.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin, a good 1/4 cup per pocket. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the muffins look nice and dark-golden brown. Let cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then twist each one out and remove on a wire rack to cool completely. Stored in an airtight container, these muffins keep well for up to two days, but they are at their best a couple hours after baking. (Storage tip: to prevent the muffin tops from getting 'sweaty' from the emanating moisture, place a piece of paper towel together with the muffins in the container.)

I'm sold already

What have we got here? Let's see...First on the list: brownies (oh priorities!).

A mistake, as we all know it, is something that one hasn't done correctly. Nearly all mistakes don't serve a kitchen’s interests, mistakes like, you know, burnt meat, unrisen cakes, curdled creams, and other improbable things. Luckily, though, there remains that scarce percentage of things done to food incorrectly that elevate the final result to greatness, or, modesty forbidding, close to it. Case in point: the resident brownies at Gebroeders Niemeijer, they would not have seen the light of the day and thronged the local hungry if an error hadn't crept in -- and stayed.

A couple years ago I was put in charge of improving a brownie recipe that would warrant a sweet that, upon the first bite, would have to do nothing lesser than turn haters (of brownies) into lovers (of brownies), or, at the very least, be something to write home about. Now, we live in the world full of brownies. There are the ones that squarely sit in the well-behaved, composed cake department, and others that find themselves on the opposite end of the trail, in the fudge field, and yet some others that tie the two worlds together and are at once like a moist cake and a luscious chocolate pudding or a mousse. I fancied our brownie to be that bridge, and so I set about figuring out what measures to take to this end. The only catch was that the recipe I'd been given to tweak -- it was trying to make brownies more cake-y than anything -- already called for the whole pound of premium dark chocolate (a must in any case), engulfed in a good amount of butter and eggs, which made me feel that simply upping the numbers wouldn't really meet the goal.

You know what did? A memory lapse. Re-trying the recipe over a few days led me to think I'd remembered the correct quantities alright, and so I gave myself a permission to make it by heart one fine morning. I melted this much butter and blended it with that much chocolate; whisked this many eggs with that much sugar; and sieved that much flour. All mentioned parties were combined and assigned to the oven, having later produced thin melt-in-your-mouth brownies, rich and creamy, holding their luxurious selves together just so, just barely enough. Many a taster was impressed -- and so was I. But my amusement was also stemming from the fact that I didn't have a clue what I'd done differently this time. Only hours further down the road, my brains going in reverse trying to re-live the past day, it finally dawned on me...the flour. I unknowingly decreased its amount from three digits to two, thus having used four times less flour than usual! Reader, I've never before relayed all this to anybody at work, except for my ex-colleague, a French guy, Arnaud, whom this cheeky brownie converted into a ferocious brownie eater, which, as he said, he didn't expect of himself, I normally don't like browniez. So I let him in on the mystery. Other than that, until now nobody knew of the little mistake/trick.

Unfortunately, I can't post the said recipe here. I'm contractually bound to keep my lips zipped, you see. But!  All that hullabaloo is not at all for no reason. Which is that I recently came across a very, very similar recipe in Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies. This woman and her New Bittersweet Brownies (such is the name), they are after my own heart. It transpires to be a norm now, in comparison to the decades of the past, to use more chocolate and less flour, as Medrich reveals. Holy egg, I incidentally tapped into some modern cosmic brownie spirit! I didn't expect that of myself.

In other developments, tomorrow I'm flying to Russia for two weeks to visit my family. I haven't seen them -- weekly Skype sessions don't count -- for two and a half years. First the dishwasher and then the apprentice wages, all served to delay my trip for, well, a long while. But not just that. Having completed my Master's, I stumbled in some sort of after-graduation depression. My studies were giving me cover from all these worrying questions parents are sometimes so prone to throw at you, such as What's now?, When are you going to look for a real job?, What, do you want to write? What does that mean?, and so forth. So naturally once I was done with my thesis I felt very unprotected. And so I got to eat my discomfort. Which made me put on weight. Which made me want to avoid letting my parents see me. A vicious circle good and proper. But I'm doing better now. I'm looking forward to finally seeing my parents in person again. I'm ready to face their questions; they mean no harm. I'm also looking forward to sitting down at my grandmother's kitchen table and enjoying her stew of river fish with onions, potatoes and tomatoes, chatting the time away.

I may not have all the answers yet, but I might make it up for that with these brownies, not too greasy, not too sweet, cake-y around the edges, with a glossy thin-paper crust and a heart of a soufflé. I'm sold already.

New Bittersweet Brownies
Source: Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies, by Alice Medrich
Yield: 16 smaller or 12 larger brownies

225 g (8 ounces) premium bittersweet chocolate (70 % cacao), coarsely chopped

90 g (3 ounces) butter, cut into several pieces

3 eggs

200 g (7 ounces) sugar

Scant 1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

50 g (1.75 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1       1. Place a rack in the lower third of the oven and pre-heat the oven to 175 C (350 F). Line a 20-cm (8-inch) square baking pan across the bottom and all the way up two opposite sides with parchment paper.

2       2. Put the chocolate and butter in a medium heatproof bowl position directly in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until the mixture is melted; it should be smooth and quite warm. Set aside. In a separate medium bowl, with an electric mixer on high speed, beat the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla until the eggs and thick and light colored, about 2 minutes. Whisk the warm chocolate into the egg mixture. With a spatula, carefully fold in the flour.

3      3. Scrape the batter into the lined pan and spread evenly. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out free of raw mixture stuck to it. If you want these brownies really gooey, bake them for 20 minutes instead. Leave to cool in the pan on a rack for at least an hour. Lift the edges of the parchment liner and remove to a cutting board. Use a long sharp knife to cut into 16 squares. Keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.