Breads & Cakes

Today is a day for slouchy yellow sweaters and neon pink nails, for doing the crossword and then riding your new blue bike through the grey fog, for parking yourself at the greenmarket.  When you’re there, you’ll want to buy olive bread, red snapper fillets, fresh mint, fat asparagus, new strawberries and some gnarly carrots, short and lumpy, with well-coiffed leafy green tops that rustle and billow with the wind from the Bay.

When you get home, you’ll want to eat sugared strawberries, olive toast, carrot bread.  You’ll measure your flour, mix your sugars, grate your nutmeg, but then you’ll hit a snag.  Those lovely carrots, you’ll realize, have gone missing.  Where could they be?  You’ll check your market tote, the refrigerator, the countertop – no carrots.  You’ll check those places again, and also the freezer, just for good measure, because maybe you’re going nuts and you threw them in there without realizing.  You didn’t.  You’ll scratch your head, because you know that you definitely bought some carrots and that those carrots were here just a minute ago.

Then you’ll look towards the couch.  You will see Ben there, looking guilty, crunching his jaw and holding a carrot top.

He’ll say “oops,” and then you’ll say “OOPS?!” and vow not to give him any carrot bread, once you get more carrots and actually bake it, you mean.  But you will give him carrot bread, because he likes it so much and because you can’t help yourself, because he is Ben and because they were just carrots, after all.  And because carrot bread, faintly sweet and speckled with coconut, is meant for sharing.  Even with a carrot sneak.

…

When I lived in an enormous apartment building in New York City (a mere month ago), I knew only one of my neighbors.  Just one of those New York things, I guess; when you live in a city with 8 million others, it’s far too daunting to try and get to know everyone, so, instead, nobody gets to know anyone.  Neighborliness is too exhausting when you live in a building of thousands, you know?  At any rate, my one New York neighbor was named Mike.  He owned a big dog and a nice collection of shoes, and I’m fairly certain he thought my sister and I were a sweet young lesbian couple who lived three doors down and often wore matching workout gear.

Since I’ve moved to San Francisco, I’ve already met two of my neighbors.  There’s Chris, who lives next door — we met when I was walking out of my apartment and he was walking into his.  It was clear we were both in respective hurries, so we said quick hellos and then did an awkward shuffle around each other in our small hallway; it was nice.

My other neighbor is named Jen.  I know this because of the late-night laundry lock out.  The late-night laundry lockout began at 10:30pm last Saturday night.  Ben and I snuck down to the laundry room to throw in a load (quite a life, we lead), terrified yet thrilled at the prospect of doing laundry after the building’s acceptable laundry hours.  We darted into the washroom, fed the machines some quarters and then dashed out, nervously giggling at our domestic derring-do.  It wasn’t until we were halfway up the building’s back staircase that Ben asked me, smiling, “You have my keys, right?”

I didn’t.  Being his keys and all, I didn’t, you know, have them.

…

Read More

Roughly 80% of my days here in California have been rainy ones.  Maybe 73%.  70-80 percent, probably.  Definitely.  I mean, those are made up percentages, but whatever, it’s been rainy.  What’s going on, California?  Meanwhile, my old love, New York City, has been taunting us with sun-filled, 70 degree days.  It’s officially spring now, so let’s get our act together, California, okay?  Okay.

Spring it may be, but only just.  At the markets, the steadfast winter jewels are hanging on tight — kale, Brussels sprouts, apples, citrus.  They haven’t yet made way for asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries and peas.  I don’t really mind, because of the Meyer lemons.

Meyer lemons are thin-skinned, bright and gorgeous, especially here, where they’re grown in my neighbors’ backyards.  They’re sweeter and more floral than regular lemons, since they’re actually a cross between a Eureka or Lisbon lemon and a mandarin orange.  (It’s true, I Googled it).

I’m planning to wait out the rain, and to wait for the strawberries.  Until then, we have Meyer lemons, and that’s okay with me.

…

Sometimes you want a little extra zing in your breakfast.  A little bit of zing.

You know?

Meyer lemons are in season now, and a good Meyer lemon makes an excellent (and I mean excellent) muffin.  Golden tinged yellow, moist and tender crumbed, flecked with brightly sweet, sour zest — a lemon yogurt quick bread is as good a breakfast as any, I think you will agree.

But when you add some gingerbread spice to a bang-up lemon cake, what you get, my lovely readers, is zing.  Maybe you call it zip.  Kick.  A little get-up-and-go.  Maybe you don’t call it anything at all, because you’re, you know, normal, and you just like to sip your tea and swallow your muffin and get on with your day.

Well, fine.

…