Dunk & Crumble

mollygilbert520

Brownie Berry Tart

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Lots of things happening over here, people!  Firstly, my nails are painted a color called “marshmallow.”  Clearly, good things, they are happening.  There are new projects to think about, bright yellow sneakers to wear, picnics to be eaten at the beach, and cross-country flights to take for the 4th of July.  My head is excited.

So let’s celebrate and get patriotic with this thing.  What’s more American than a brownie?  I mean, besides Tim Tebow and pie and manifest destiny and stuff.  Brownies!  Maybe we’ll bake them up in a tart pan, and infuse them with fresh raspberry.  And if we pile them high with  fluffy, white whipped cream and bright red and blue berries, well, then we do our forefathers proud.  Here’s looking at you, Thomas Jefferson.

Happy Independence Day, Amurica!  I made you a brownie.  You feel like home to me.  You have your issues, but really, who doesn’t?  On the whole, I think you’re pretty wonderful.  Covered with berries and cream.

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Cool Tomato Sandwich

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Happy first day of real summer!  Rumor has it you east coasters are hot today.  Damn hot.  Real hot.  Sticky, drippy, lung-crushing hot.

So, basically, hot.

It’s a perfectly breezy 74 degrees here in San Francisco, but I’m not just going to go telling you that.  I mean, why would I?  To make you jealous?  Encourage you to shake your sweaty fist at me?  That wouldn’t be nice, no sir.  Instead, I’m going to tell you how to master the art of the sandwich of summer sandwiches, that coolest of hot-weather cool, the classic: tomato sandwich.

It’s really quite simple.  The principles of this sandwich are fourfold:

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Dad

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 Happy Father’s Day!  To all the good Dads out there.  There are many, I know, but only one is mine.  And as far as I’m concerned, he’s the best.

My dad.  What a guy.  A man with his own baseball card, an occasional beard, and an avid following on the Twitter.  An excellent DJ.  The man who taught me how to eat a cupcake, crush a jump shot, whistle, jump into the Montauk pool, ride a bike, drive on the highway, and properly use the comma.  You know, all of the important things.

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Cornmeal Peach Cobbler

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Remember that time I told you we had 19.5 pounds of peaches sitting in a box on the countertop, softening and bruising and ripening with the frantic inevitability of a large snowball teetering atop a very steep hill?

Well.  We did.

It started with a mosquito (apparently).  This rogue mosquito (apparently) got past our fortress of insect security (and by “fortress of security” I mean “we sleep with the windows wide open”) and, a few short nights ago, found itself in our bedroom.  Allegedly, said mosquito took a liking to Ben (can’t blame it there, I suppose), and started biting.  And biting.  With vengeance.  Apparently.  As far as I’m concerned, this bit about a mosquito may or may not be true.  All I know is that I woke up at 3am to blinding light and furious swatting.  Half-asleep and wholly confused, I made a cotton-mouthed and squinty-eyed attempt to see what was the matter before muttering something meant to sound like “ok” and sliding back to sleep.

I woke up alone, the bedsheets next to me bunched, crinkled and cold.  Interesting.  Maybe Ben had woken up early and gone for a run?  Overachiever.  Maybe he’d bring me back a bagel?

I walked down the hall to the bathroom, thinking about bagels.  I opened the door and quickly learned that, no, Ben hadn’t gone for a run.  He wasn’t bringing me back a bagel.  There he was, scrunched on top of our extra roll-up mattress, which he’d wedged into our tiny bathroom.  The mattress looked more like a hammock, the way it was squished between the wall and the bathtub, all lumpy and misshapen in the too-small space, but, apparently, it had to be done.  To escape the mosquito.  Obviously.

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Apricot & Lavender Galette

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I’ve recently discovered that living in California is like winning the summer fruit lottery — why doesn’t everyone live here?  It’s not even June yet, but the peaches!  The cherries, the blueberries, the plums, the apricots, the peaches!  Ripe and fragrant, everywhere you turn.  In May!  What is this sort of wizardry?

Whatever it is, I’m on board.  I mean, Ben and I drove two hours to go peach picking over Memorial Day weekend, and consequently have somewhere upwards of fifteen pounds of quickly ripening peaches sitting in a cardboard box on the kitchen countertop.  Thinking about this makes me anxious, so let’s please talk about the apricots, instead.

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Red, White and Frosted

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Just a little inspiration for you this Memorial Day Weekend!  I hope it’s filled with warm sun and smiles.  And thankfulness.  And cake.

You can make these with any cupcake recipe (even one from a box — my lips are sealed) and any type of white frosting (simple vanilla, sweet and tangy white chocolate cream cheese, even mascarpone).  All you need to decorate are some crunchy sugars and a few bright berries.

Aren’t they pretty?

Let’s bring them to a barbecue.

Maybe make a friend smile.

Thank some troops.

Make the weekend a little extra.

Happy Memorial Day, cupcakes!

Oatmeal Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Today is a grumpy day.  A scowling, brooding, arms-crossed sort of day.  Why?

No good reason.

You’ve heard of these days?  The ones where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and everything and anything is just sort of annoying?  That dust on the bathroom window sill?  Dumb.  Your morning workout?  Ugh.  Dumb.  This bowl of blueberry yogurt?  So dumb.

Okay.  Let’s snap out of it.  Snap snap snap.  We are not grumpy.  We are lucky.

So lucky!  Lucky to live in California, where the sky is blue and the peaches are already in season.  Lucky that our kitchen cabinets are painted purple, and that there are fresh flowers in our brand new bud vase.  Lucky for our families.  Our friends and our Bens.  Lucky to be healthy and alive and wearing neon yellow sneakers.

And lucky for the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

On a day like this, one of these (multiples of these, I think we can agree), might be in order.  Lucky us.

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Lavender Blackberry Syrup

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Everyone!  My parents are coming!  To San Francisco!  They’re on their way here right now.

!!!

I’m a little bit excited.  I haven’t seen them in over two months, you see, which for us is a pretty longish time.  Mom and Dad!  Winging out from Philadelphia!

I’ve been too excited (frantic?  I’ve spent all of my free time cleaning like a mad lady – Ben loves this about me, I swear) to cook or bake much, but I did throw this lavender blackberry syrup together, and I’m excited (can you tell I’m excited?) to serve it with ice and soda water when my parents arrive.  And gin?  Definitely gin.  Or mixed into some lemonade.  Or with hot water to make tea.  Over vanilla ice cream?  Poured on hot pancakes?  A sweet and pinkish-purply glaze for thick slices of pound cake?

You see where I’m going here.  Lavender blackberry syrup: to infinity and beyond (to impress my visiting parents).  Get excited!

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Pistachio Rhubarb Not Quite Pound Cake

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A stunner, this one.  A lightened pound cake flecked with pink and green.  Looks nice, doesn’t it?  Pretty.  Simple.  Baked with love.

…This cake exploded in my oven.

I won’t blame the cake, though it was clearly not my fault.  I didn’t tell the cake to explode inside my very own oven, certainly.  I didn’t tell it to ooze and bubble, splattering and crusting all over the floor of the thing.  I didn’t.

Did I overfill the pan?  Absolutely not.  I don’t know.

…Maybe.

So what?!  So what if I did, huh?  Maybe I got a little greedy with it!  Maybe I filled the little loaf pan to bursting – so?  WHO’S GOING TO BELIEVE YOU, ANYWAY?

…I’m sorry.

You’re right.  It was me.  It’s my fault the pretty cake exploded.  But the batter was just so lovely, you see.  So bright and rich!  So full of crisp rhubarb, bits of orange zest, gnarled pistachios!  I got a little overzealous.  I lost my head.  I lost my cake.  Lesson learned.

After a bit of tweaking and a second try, I ended up with the same lovely batter just, fortuitously for those of us who don’t like wasted dough, not quite so much of it.  Into the loaf pan it went, and, thankfully, into the loaf pan it stayed.  This time it rose gently, weighed down by an ample smattering of meaty pistachios, and baked and browned to perfection.  So you see?  I’m not a cake ruiner after all.  I’m no detonator of gateaux.  I, my friends, am a cake tamer.  A pound cake whisperer.  A genius of the first order of geniuses.

Or, you know, a regular baker.

At any rate, this cake is tender-crumbed and full of bright flavor.  It’s guaranteed not to explode in your oven.  Probably.

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Grilled Pineapple Salsa

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Certain events unfolded over the weekend which left me feeling, what’s the word?  Oh, awful.  And by “certain events,” I mean “margaritas,” and by “awful” I mean “terrible.”

So, so terrible.

Naturally, this tequila-induced Awfulness lead to a declaration on my part to, from here on out, subsist on nothing but vegetables and water.  I could do it, too.  I could walk on sharp tacks, bathe in rubbing alcohol (ugh, please don’t say alcohol), watch a horror film with my eyes open — any one of these things might feel better than the Awfulness.  Vegetables and water.  Detox.  I’m doing it.

Saturday morning, this was.  So I drank some water, ate sliced cucumbers, went out for a walk.  Easy.

That’s when I got hungry.

While Ben laughed at my inability to eat only vegetables for one day, I revised my previous declaration to state that I would only eat vegetable-based meals for an entire week.  You know, as opposed to pastry-based ones.

It’s been two whole days, and the declaration remains intact.  I tried to bake a pound cake today and it exploded in the oven.  (What?  Even professionals explode cakes from time to time.)  If that’s not a sign, I’ll eat my foot (covered with cucumbers, obviously).

So, in honor of the Awfulness, I present to you a delicious, veggie- (fine, fruit-) based recipe.  Grilled pineapple salsa.  To be eaten over greens and maybe some black beans or tofu.  Or chicken.  Maybe turkey burgers?  Pita chips.  Whatever.  Just, please, hold the margarita.

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