This Week in Forking

Some things have changed around here. Look at rule number 2. I have rewritten it.

This week I took great delight in slashing a large loaf of rising bread before it went in the oven. That loaf turned out wonderfully! We ate half of it before 9 am the next morning. I'll have to post that recipe later. We pulled it out of 450° oven right before we dashed across the quad to a prom dance in Eric's seminary's dining hall. True story. I wore a little black dress, Eric's fedora and black stockings with  seams up the back of the legs. I never would have worn anything like that at age seventeen.

Later on in the week I made cornbread out of the dregs of my dry goods supply. I did this to avoid working on writing songs or writing anything (like this blog). It was too salty, but no one would have known it unless I'd told them. Which I did. This week I was again frustrated as I usually ended up with some completed baking project at about 10:30 or 11 pm, which means bad light. If anyone has good tips for taking photos of food in low light, let me know.

Then at dinner here I thought about taking pictures of the food I eat with an inconspicuous fork in the picture for obvious reasons. I don't know if this is a practice I'll continue for obvious reasons. The sweet potato fries there are forking amazing.

This week I marveled in got annoyed at this phenomenon: It's great to have a friend in the kitchen, but it skews the process a bit. My partner and I have a dance, a routine that we could probably do sleepwalking as long as were alone. But add another body in the kitchen and suddenly the garlic is almost burning, the kale is too wet and there is like a whole bush of it there on the cutting board, and the eggs...well, I don't even want to talk about them. Bryna, it's not your fault! I loved having you over for dinner. Please come again, and we'll work on overcoming this phenomenon and making better eggs. Eggs can create tension and controversy. We should have just let everyone fry their own.

This week Eric and I hiked up and down the steps that are supposedly equivalent to climbing a 30-story building to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse on the Pacific ocean. The wind activated my cowlick ferociously. But it was warm in the sun and it feels good to hug in the wind. After that we drove through the rolling green-gold hills singing Kate Wolf's "Here in California" over and over working out a harmony part while we ate sunflower seeds and fig bars. We stopped in Pt. Reyes Station at the Cowgirl Creamery and tasted an aged gouda that was a lot like salted caramel. We enjoyed a sesame crusted levain from Brickmaiden Bakery very much as well. Eric kept handing me hunks of bread to gnaw as we drove back to Berkeley through the calming green canopy of Samuel P. Taylor state park.

Here in California
Fruit hangs heavy on the vine
And there's no gold, I thought I'd warn ya
And the hills turn brown in the summertime

This week I reflected on the kitchen as a place to challenge by deepest doubts, to overcome my fears and to process my emotions. Slashing bread is a safe way to demolish my insecurities symbolically.

The kitchen is a laboratory where I
can control my anxiety. In the end even if Bryna is over, they are just eggs. Next time they can be better. The kitchen makes me feel safe. It's an extension of my workspace and that's why my desk is within sight of it and why I place some of my most precious items on the ledge above the kitchen sink. I found that little tiger on the street in the Sellwood neighborhood in Portland.




This week I've felt like this tree I saw at the Pt. Reyes Seashore. Windblown and wild, but attached. I'm glad I'm still attached, I think.

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