1.  Pineapple Cottage Cheese Pie.  Recipe courtesy of Meta Given, natch.  Better than you’d think!  The cottage cheese is used as the base of a custard, and is blended and not chunky, as I’m sure you are envisioning in your worst nightmares.

2.  Homity pie.  Recipe from A Pie for All Seasons, the cookbook from Pieminister, my most favourite eating establishment in Londontown.  The recipe calls for half potatoes and half sweet potatoes, and is full of cheesey oniony goodness.

3.  Coconut Strawberry Chiffon pie.  Recipe from my crazy imagination.  I made this to bring to the birthday party of a very lactose-intolerant friend, so it has lots of creamy coconut milk, but no dairy.  It is also vegan:  I used agar agar to set it instead of the gelatine used in many chiffon pies. I don’t know how tasty this will be because we don’t get to eat it until tomorrow, but it looks lovely!

While I still have no idea what the Mohawk part of Blackberry Dumplings Mohawk refers to (the internet yielded no information.  The doctoral candidate, university instructor, and researcher within me shakes her head at this shoddy display research technique; while the lazy person within me asks “but aren’t mysteries more fun than knowing things?”), I can confirm that whatever it is, it is delicious and weird.  Essentially, what you do is boil down berries in sugar and water until they get a bit syrupy, and then drop balls of dough into it and let the berry juice steam the dough into tasty dumplings.  Like an inside out cobbler, sort of.

You will need:

1 quart blackberries

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp butter

2/3 cup milk

And here is what Meta Given would have you do:

Sort and wash berries.  Place berries undrained in a 3 qt shallow saucepan that has a tight fitting cover.  Add 1/2 cup of sugar, water, salt and lemon juice and stir into berries gently.  Cover and simmer 5 minutes.  Sift flour, measure and resift 3 times with the 1 tbsp sugar, 1/4 tsp salt and baking powder.  Cut the butter in with pastry blender.  Add milk all at once, then beat vigorously half a minute.  Drop from tablespoon onto simmering berries.  Cover tightly and simmer over very low heat 25 minutes.  Do not uncover at any time during this simmering period.  Spoon dumplings out into individual dishes, pour the sauce and berries over the top.  Serve warm.

Some things:  a pot with a large surface area is key, otherwise, your dumplings will all glob together into one giant dumpling.  This is not necessarily a problem, if presentation isn’t a huge concern, because it obviously tastes just as good.  But my first batch was less Blackberry Dumplings Mohawk and more Blackberry Giant Steamed Cake Mohawk.  This is what was left in the pot after I’d served up half of my giant dumpling:

Looks totally weird, but is totally delish.  I did a second batch in a bigger saucepan and it was much more dumplingy – while they expanded and were touching each other, they were still individual dumplings.  Also!  You obviously don’t need to limit yourself to blackberries with this!  My second batch was Pineapple Blood Orange Dumplings Mohawk, and I added cinnamon to the dumpling batter because it is a little bit bland as it is.  The dumplings themselves are kind of amazing – they really cook up like little cakes.  I am kind of obsessed with this recipe, in all its weirdness, and I forsee that I will be making strange variations of it endlessly because the novelty refuses to wear off.

Also, there is a FUN SUSPENSE element to this recipe because Meta Given orders you to COVER THE POT AND LEAVE THE POT COVERED DON’T EVEN PEEK INSIDE OR YOU’LL RUIN EVERYTHING for 25 minutes.  The first time I made this it was an exciting mystery!  What would happen?  Would the dough turn into a unicorn?  Would it all boil over and explode into a giant, sticky disaster?  Adventure cooking!  It is the best kind of cooking!

Really, nothing else encapsulates the marvel of mid-century cookery quite like a bowl of diced ham, am I right?

Last week I reunited with my culinary muse, Ms. Meta Given, and made her Sweet Potato and Ham Casserole.  Now, I don’t know what is wrong with everyone I know (with the exception of vegetarians, from whom the following sentiment is understandable), but every time I mention the name of this casserole, people tell me that it sounds gross.  FRIENDS, IT IS DELICIOUS!  Think about it:  Sweet potatoes are delicious.  Ham is delicious.  When combined, would they not create even more deliciousness?  The answer is OF COURSE, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?

Here is what you need to make your own Casserole of Deliciousness:

1 1/2 cups diced cooked ham

1 tbsp butter or ham fat (Ok, maybe ham fat is a gross idea, I will give you that.  I chose butter.)

6 cups hot mashed sweet potatoes

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt

And here is what you do!

Brown ham slightly slightly in one tbsp butter or ham fat.  Whip potatoes until smooth and combine with beaten eggs, milk, lemon juice, and salt; whip again thoroughly.  Mix with the browned ham and drippings, and turn into an 8-cup greased casserole.  Bake uncovered in a boderate oven (350 degrees F) for 45 minutes. Serve hot.

Serve hot indeed.

Ok, so I don’t have much editorial commentary to add to this one, because it’s one of Meta Given’s more straightforward recipes, and it’s DELICIOUS.  I didn’t grease my casserole dish because, you know, all that butter/ham fat and hammy drippings, but it wasn’t really necessary.

Here, I think we need one more gratuitous shot of tasty hamfood:

Try this one at home, kids!

Here is today’s tip for having a positive attitude:  When an obnoxious person sends you an obnoxious email for no point other than, it seems, to be obnoxious, delay responding for as long as you can.  As long as you have not responded, you are in control, by willfully creating a state of entropy.  The longer you go without responding, the longer you go without having to deal with the inevitable obnoxious response to your response* and you can just blissfully occupy a state of willful ignorance.  Of course, really all you are doing is biding your time in the calm eye of the shitstorm, but maybe that’s really the best place to be, all things considered.

(This is a variation on a technique I used when I was dating that guy who never answered my emails or returned my calls because, it turns out, he was dating probably about 57 other women who looked exactly like me at the same time.  ”He can’t not respond to my email if I don’t send him an email!”  FOOLPROOF LOGIC.)

Anyhow, I am developing a theory about how all attitudes are, in fact, positive attitudes.  Because as long as you have an attitude, you are having feelings, right?  So you haven’t completely lost your soul.  Ergo, even a bad attitude is a positive attitude because it’s better than having no attitude or emotions whatsover.  Or maybe I’m grasping at straws.

*Which is obviously very polite and diplomatic and professional.

Anyhow, here are three things that I think are going to be helpful to me in maintaining my positive attitude:

1.  Coping Bundts.  Is there anything more comforting and delightful than a pudgy, round little cake?  Nothing.  I have decided to make myself the most popular lady in every unpleasant situation by appearing bearing Coping Bundts to share with the people I like (and only the people I like).  My Gentleman Caller got me this double bundt pan for Christmas, and it is perfect because you can get about four little bundts out of one regular recipe of bundt batter.  And also, you can hold it up to your boobs and pretend it’s a really great breastplate.  And then when you are stuck in an interminable, hours-long union meeting where someone insists that Roberts Rules states that anyone can do what they want and that there are no actual rules, you can just sit there with your personal-sized bundt and put cake in your face, staving off that feeling of lurking despair for at least fifteen more minutes.

2.  The “FUCK IT!!!” Point.  THIS!  This is revolutionary.  This will change dissertation writing forevermore.  I have realized that whether or not a dissertation chapter is finished has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it is finished, ie.: done, complete, as good as it can be, well argued and cogent, etc.  Instead, it is done at the moment when one divests all emotional attachment with it, says “FUCK IT!!!!” and closes the word document forever (or at least until it’s time for final revisions).  I have found that the “FUCK IT!!!” point comes suddenly, without warning, often after a period of protracted despair.  But when it comes, it is the most glorious and liberating feeling in the world.  I just LIVE for the “FUCK IT!!!” point.

3.  Baskerville and Franklin, Cats.  Ugh, you guys, how are you so cute all the time????  I can’t even handle it.  Ok, fine, here are some gratuitous cat pictures:

Baskerville’s interests include hoarding receipts, candy wrappers, and other small things that make a crinkly sound in a secret spot under the bookshelf; hiding his collar where nobody can find it; and sleeping beside your legs in such a way that you are trapped in bed in the morning.

Franklin’s interests include racing across the room to steal my desk chair whenever I stand up, sitting on top of the refrigerator and glowering down upon his underlings, and the ladies.

1.  Greyound buses;

2.  Shared rooms in hostel-like accommodation (this is actually something that I declared myself Too Old For at the age of 22, an ambitious declaration to make at the age that might be really considered prime hostel-dwelling age);

3.  White zinfandel, or really any rose, unless it is the kind of rose I make myself by pouring the end of a bottle of red and the end of a bottle of white into the same glass (A LADY IS NEVER TOO OLD TO INVENT HER OWN WINE);

4.  Getting a bottle of Bailey’s from my grandparents for Christmas every year because of that one Christmas at their house when I was 15 and drank a lot of Bailey’s because I hadn’t really drunk before and it tasted like milkshakes, a seemingly innocuous event that returns to haunt me in the form of a giant bottle of Bailey’s every Christmas;

5.  Any kind of musical event that involves being outside in the burning sun (or, more likely pouring rain) with a bunch of people who are/are dressed like hippies;

6.  Camping, much to the disappointment of my Gentleman Caller, who often alludes to willingly spending the night in the great outdoors as though it is actually a fun past time;

6.  Skirts that fall above the knee, which have the effect of making me look like an overgrown five-year-old.

I have transformed them into cherry and frangelico-striped oranges.  VOILA, HOLIDAY MIRACLE.

I could keep my methods a secret and I could claim my magical act of orange transformation was achieved through the powers of alchemy, but instead I will err on the side of honesty and admit that I learned it from a book.  Specificially, I learned it from Jellies and the Moulds, by Peter Brears, which I purchased at the British LIbrary bookshop and which has proven to be the single most important book purchase that I have made since I upgraded to a new copy of Harriet the Spy.  Brears is a food historian, so this is not just a recipe book, but is really a social history of jellies in the UK, from the middle ages (MEDIEVAL JELLIES!  My eyes have been opened to a new and slightly revolting world) to the 20th century.  I have learned so many things from this book:  disgusting things about boiling calfs feet until they became gelatin; fascinating things about flummeries, which are soft gelatins made by boiling gultinous stuff like wheat and rice down and extracting the goo; the use of gelatin as a food for sick people, which was useless as it has basically no nutritional value; and about the manufacture of moulds, which grew more and more elaborate and fussy through the 19th Century.

The stripey oranges are called Oranges a la Bellevue, and the recipe dates from the British Regency period, although, according to Brears, it enjoyed popularity well into the Victorian era.  I don’t know a whole lot about the Regency period, but from what I’ve seen (ie: fancy jelly recipes and the Brighton Pavilion) I have to say that I really appreciate the spirit of utter idiotic frivolity that characterizes the Regency-era approaches to both decorative arts and cuisine.

Anyhow!  Here is how I made my Oranges a la Bellevue.  The original recipe calls for the jellies to be orange and almond-flavored, but I opted for cherries and booze because I can’t leave well enough alone.  The results were delicious!  One warning:  I am impatient and tried to rush the setting period for the jelly layers by popping them in the freezer.  This resulted in some expansion and contraction of the layers, so they weren’t as perfect as they could have been, and they shrank a bit once they’d thawed.  If and when I do this again, I will put on my patience pants and just wait for things to set at refrigerator temperature so that the oranges are prettier.  Also, I used regular gelatin, but I think this recipe would be an excellent candidate for using agar agar to do a veggie-friendly version.  Agar agar sets a bit firmer and crunchier than gelatin, which I think would work well for slicing and presentation here.

On with the oranges!  Click an image to enlarge and to show recipe steps.

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In addition to dead people tourism, we also went DANCING! and it was GREAT! because unlike other places in the world (ahem, Los Angeles) it was so much less of a scene and so much more about just DANCING!  And also you can get a bottle of wine for, like, three euros, which is cheaper than a god damn shitty cappuccino in Londontown.  This makes dancing even greater.  Not uncoincidentally, I sustained a larger number of very minor but still inconvenient flesh wounds (got thumb stuck in door jamb, fell off curb and banged up knee, etc.) during my three days in the city of light than I normally do in, like, a year; and I also managed to ruin about one pair of stockings for each day that I was in Paris.  Life is not easy when you are a fashionable young lady in a city where the wine is cheaper than the water!

ANYHOW, here are some pictures of cemeteries, etc.

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One thing I will miss about London, though, is the way it enabled me to wander.  And wander and wander and wander.

I like wandering both purposefully and aimlessly; with a goal in mind mind or simply to while away an afternoon. Is purposeful wandering an oxymoron?  I don’t think so – sometimes I will deliberately set out with the goal of wandering to a specific place.  I like wandering by myself, because then I can truly go wherever I want and and not feel like I have to worry over whether or not someone else is having a nice time. But I also like wandering with other people, because sometimes you need to witness the world with someone else there, so that you can laugh, ensemble, at the ridiculous and delightful things are in the world, which, I think, one is more attuned to whilst wandering.

Los Angeles, I love you, but you are not always the most-wandering conducive. Sometimes you are! You are good when it comes to EPIC JOURNEYS, like walking to the beach from downtown, or walking home from school, which I haven’t done but which I keep meaning to do. Or, on a less epic level, walking through the residential streets between Santa Monica and Melrose, winding my way through mid-century low-rise land to the Fairfax trading post on a Sunday afternoon. But, Los Angeles, you are hot and sunny and sometimes you make me too tired for wandering. Also, you are a grid. A giant grid. Without tiny little sidestreets that might lead god knows where, I find my path can feel a bit prescribed . And while this makes not getting lost easier, sometimes I want to be a little lost, you know?

So, I’m sorry Los Angeles, but London is superceding you right now. It could be because I only have a week and a half left here, and I am feeling pre-emptively nostalgic, but what can I say? In London, it is CLOUDY! And on days when it is sunny, it doesn’t actually get hot! Cool weather is good wandering weather, it’s a fact.*  Also, there are streets in London on top of streets, streets so small they are just called paths, streets that appear and go nowhere, streets that go around in circles, streets that can be frustrating, but can also be fascinating.  And there are parks full of paths that mimic those streets; parks where you feel like you’ve stepped out of the city into the countryside, even if its only for a few moments.  The parks are full of ponds and trees and dogs that look like people dressed up in dog costumes (I have noticed that most animals in England look like tiny people dressed in animal costumes.  I’m not sure why this is).  And most of London’s museums are free, yay socialism, which means that even when the weather is TRULY terrible, there is wandering to be done.

And so, in London, I did lots of wandering, and here are some pictures of my wanderings over the past few weeks:

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*And, on a slightly tangential note, I’ve also decided since I’ve been over here that fall is my most flattering season because I can layer warm sweaters and tailored coats and look put together, whereas in Los Angeles, I’m always a bit afraid that I’m a hot, sweaty mess who is showing too much skin.

It’s an interesting difference in culture:  here, it seems like just about everyone rides the tube, whereas in LA, well, a colleague who shall remain nameless once said to me “the bus here just seems like it’s for the underprivileged.”  This is a very stupid and problematic statement that I shall not begin to unpack here, but I think it really gets at the difference in attitude towards transit that pervades the two cities.  Riding transit is a major part of my life, and a big part of the culture shared by myself and many of the people I know.  It is also a major part of the lives of anyone in LA who cannot or chooses not to have a car.  Lots and lots of people ride the bus, but the bus-riding population in LA is really seen as a marginal group. Here, in London, I think it’s taken for granted that just about everyone will ride transit.  There are many things that I think are good about a transit-oriented commuter culture, but one big one is that I think it’s healthy for people to actually just be in public spaces around other people.  Around lots of other people.  Around lots of different other people.  I am tired of rampant individualism, and I think that actually being around other people in the world can give people a sense of perspective and of place in larger social communities and structures. Maybe this is naive and idealistic.  Probably it is.  Oh well, whatever.

There are more practical, tangible things that I like about a city where transit is part of the culture.  I like that I never worry about feeling lost because pretty much anywhere you are you can walk until you hit either an Underground station or a bus stop where you can catch a bus that will take you to an Underground station.  I like that once I’m in the Underground, I never feel lost because using it is pretty intuitive (even though the lines all have names that don’t actually make logical sense, because they are all vestigial traces of when the London Underground was a bunch of independently-operating rail companies).  I like that on the weekend, when I went to a concert and I was worried about walking back to the tube in the dark afterwards, it turned out that I didn’t have to worry because all of the hundreds of people who were at the concert also took the tube there and so we all walked back to the station together and it felt totally safe.  I like that I don’t have to plan at least an hour’s travel time on either side of an event.  I am going to so many more things here in London than I do in LA, just because it’s actually easy to get places.  I’m always telling people that I love LA, but that it makes me tired.  The user-unfriendliness of public transit in the city is a big part of why that is.  (Having said all of this, obviously things are not perfect here – tube lines are sometimes frighteningly overcrowded, and everything useful always gets shut down on the weekend for maintenance.  Like this weekend, when they shut down the part that was going where I needed to go but I fail at informational-diagram-reading-comprehensions skills, so I didn’t discover this until I tried to switch trains and found my platform barricaded.)

Anyhow, something I have been frequently going to on public transit since I’ve been here are late-night museum openings!  They have these in LA, too, but I have NEVER been to one because there is no good way to get, say, from West Hollywood to the Natural History Museum without taking at least two buses, probably three.  But ANYHOW.  And also, here, most (but not all) museums are free.  Because, socialism, right?

I’ve been to the Victoria and Albert late openings twice, because I love it there.  It is very unlike, say, the British Museum, which is always very very busy, and always feels kind of…plundery.  Something about the informational pamphlet they give you when you go in to see the Parthenon friezes, for instance, just seems a little too defensive in explaining why these priceless Greek treasures are really better off in England.  And while I know the V&A has just as much of a plundery, imperialist history (hello, Queen Victoria!), since it’s a museum of design rather than, say, art or history, it is so much wider in scope and so much less intent on selling a particular History of Civilization than the British Museum. AND the current special exhibit is on postmodernism and includes such delights as costumes that belonged to Grace Jones and Klaus Nomi.

And this is where the post that I started writing a week and a half ago and then forgot about and then remembered was abandoned! What was I going to say next?  I was probably going to say something about how I also have been to a late night opening at the Churchill War Rooms where I proceeded to get quietly drunk and then wandered around pretending I was a member of Churchill’s stenography pool while listening to an Andrews Sisters cover band.  Or maybe I was going to say something about how I went to a late nigh opening at the Tate Britain, where the theme was APOCALYPSE! where I proceeded to get quietly drunk, and watched some apocalyptic performance art until they started passing out haz-mat suits for the audience members to wear, whereupon I decided it was time to go look at some good, old-fashioned John Singer Sargeants, because generally I prefer to be on the “observing” end of performance art involving haz-mat suits, rather than on the “participating” end.

So basically, the takeaway of this post is that good public transit is really handy for the particular subset of people who enjoy going to museums at night for the purpose of getting quietly drunk in presence of art and/or history.