Because the owner friend was a guy, a special brand of chill out guy, he gave the guy cooks a pass. Guys who, while slapping out breakfast, enjoyed vodka and orange Crush. In that light it was difficult to wield authority, impossible really, when a red-rimmed dude could come in three days late and get promoted. What I could do was focus on pastry, which desperately needed attention. The bakers had no set morning menu, browning whatever came to mind any sunrise of the week. There might be cherry chocolate scones for three days, no scones for two days, and a creative burst of pistachio-pineapple-something toward the end of the week.

This would not do. I wanted to see a schedule. Schedules with headings, and attached pens, and clipboards.  I wanted staff and customers to know what to expect, sure that if flour, sugar and order prevailed, the line would be out the door. I held a staff meeting to discuss the impending change.

“Why do we need a scone schedule?”

“Because when you get here at five a.m., I don’t want you to have to think.”

They were looking at me, at their phones. What am I saying? They don’t think about anything now.

I proposed doing a plain scone every day – a traditional Cream scone – in addition to a variation, say, Blueberry Oatmeal on Monday, Apricot Pecan on Tuesday, and so on. They cast suspicious looks at the typed lists I passed around, as if I were an uptight mayor cracking down on deviant art.

“Does anyone have questions?”

One agitated look. “Yeah…what’s a cream scone. Don’t we put cream in all the scones?”

“Yes…but that’s just a traditional name, Cream scone. Something we can call the everyday one.”

Dead air.

“So customers know what the everyday scone is called.”

“But…it’s just, you know like, cream. It’s one word.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“All your other ones have two things in them, like two names.”

“Yes. But this is a CREAM scone. Our flagship scone!”

“Customers want two names for everything.”

“Fine. We’ll call it Cream and Sugar Scones. Two things.”

Grumbling, shifting of car keys, and one confounded cook.

“I just…that just sounds weird, Cream and Sugar.”

“It does.”

“Yeah…I mean, one word sounds plain, and two words sound stupid, and…whatever.”

I took the sheet from his hand and pulled a pencil from my apron.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. I will take care of the menu, and I will make the scones, and you guys just come in late and drink heavily and clean the grease traps. Okay?”

This threw them. One elbowed another.

“Yeah. So I guess Cream and Sugar is fine.”

“Good.” I scratched out Cream and wrote Cream AND Sugar, then handed back the lists. “Meeting adjourned.”

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE GINGER SCONES

The slacker boys got this much right: people do love combination scones. This might be my all-time favorite, a signature flavor from my old Scone on the Range frozen scone business. I am happy to bring it back for your chocolate (and ginger!) enjoyment.

makes about 1 dozen large or 24 small scones

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt
6 oz. cold butter, cubed (12 tablespoons)
1/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup semi-sweet (or darker) chocolate chips
1/2 cup roughly chopped crystallized ginger, in chunks

extra sugar for sprinkling

———————

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large mixing bowl or stand mixer bowl.

Cut in butter. You can do this one of two ways:

Electric stand mixer With the flour mixture in the stand mixer bowl and the paddle blade attached, turn on the slowest speed and slowly add butter chunks, mixing to a coarse meal texture, with only a few remaining large flour-butter crumbs.

(or)

By hand Using a sharp-bladed pastry cutter tool, or two knives, “cut” the butter pieces into the flour mixture until you have a coarse meal texture.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, and vanilla.

Add liquid mixture to dry ingredients by hand or with stand mixer on low, using “on-off” mixing. Stop just long enough to add sugar, chocolate chips, and crystallized ginger, then continue mixing briefly to form a soft and sticky dough. Scrape dough onto lightly floured surface and turn over a few times to combine, adding flour if necessary.

Form scones You can divide dough in half, form each piece to a 1″ thick round, and cut into equal wedges, or you can pat to 1″ thick and use floured cutters for rounds or triangles.

Transfer scones to cookie sheet pan, preferably lined with parchment paper.

If desired, brush the top of each scone with a small amount of milk or cream. Sprinkle the extra white sugar thickly over tops. Bake 15-18 minutes, or until set and tops are golden brown. For the chocolate-ginger variety, watch the bottom of the scones for darkened color. Cool on baking sheet a few minutes, then transfer to racks, and serve.

* For a look at scone-mixing process (same method) visit this post: Scone, Scone on the Range

Note: use the best cocoa powder you can find for a rich chocolate dough. Cocoa tends to dry out baked goods; these hold very well for several days wrapped at room temperature, but after 1-2 days are best briefly reheated in a microwave, for just a few seconds. This also gives you the added, insanely pleasurable bonus of gooey chocolate chips.

The blog bugs, they still plague us here at Simmer, determined to keep me from bringing you new nonsense. On the plus side, it’s inspiring a rerun you’ll love, Zucchini-Ginger Bread. As baked goods go it’s simple, addictive and, if your counter currently sports heaps of rolling garden green, right on time. From August 21, 2008, please enjoy the recipe and its little coffee shop tale; I’ll be making some myself this week, and setting aside one small loaf as burnt offering to the Internet gods. I mean, whatever it takes.

———————-

Once upon a time my daughter was not a big-shot junior high kid in the know. She was just a toddling moppet – keen on alphabet games, wild for all things A to Z, and this was handy in grocery lines and waiting rooms and 600-mile drives. We played color alphabet (azure), color-animal-alphabet (azure aardvark), color-animal-place-alphabet (azure aardvark in Alabama) and of course, color-animal-place-oh-my-god-please-kill-me alphabet.

But before it came to that we played eating alphabet. All you had to do was name foods from A to Z – simple, but with three people in rotation, some letters could get tough. There are very few “I” foods, for instance, and a notoriously scarce supply of “U’s.” And then there is “Z.” If you had first crack at Z, you were golden – “zucchini” was yours. If you didn’t, there were twenty miles of silence and praying she’d fall asleep.

We never used “zucchini bread,” and – smack! – even now I don’t know why. It’s not my favorite quick bread – easily, banana nut – but it shines as a home-baked savior come the summer garden’s end. Today – true-life, I swear on a stack of candied walnuts – I overheard this conversation at the coffee shop:

(During the busy morning rush, a customer leans on the counter, waiting for her triple soy half-caf, perusing baked goods. There is a line behind her.)

Latte Lady: I don’t know…

Barista Girl: (pulling shots) would you like something else?

LL: I don’t know…I don’t want a scone. (holds up baked good) What’s this?

BG: zucchini bread. Like some?

LL: no….no…I don’t like zucchini. Bread, I don’t like zucchini bread.

BG: really? It’s so good, it’s like the American mom thing, everybody loves it.

LL: um…I don’t know. I’ve never had zucchini bread.

BG: you’ve never had it?

LL: no…

BG: so…how do you know you don’t like it?

LL: um…I just. I just can’t get past it. Zucchini.

(the line is mounting; people are checking watches, shifting feet)

BG: do you like banana bread?

LL: yes.

BG: carrot cake?

LL: oh, yes.

BG: then you’ll like zucchini bread.

(Customers shoot laser glances at her head. I am not even in line – I already have my coffee, and still want to kill her.)

LL: you know, I think it’s Z.

BG: what?

LL: I just don’t like foods that begin with Z.

BG: okay.

(plunks latte on counter)

Then I guess you won’t like zebra bread.

LL: zebra bread?

BG. oh, yeah – it’s a little chunky, and all that black and white fur. It’s totally an acquired taste.

LL: oh my god.

BG: can I get you a scone?

LL: peach is fine.

Zucchini-Ginger Bread

This fine-textured zucchini bread has a gentle ginger bite. I’d planned to top this with a little lemon icing, but one bite told me it didn’t need it. Cold milk – or a triple soy half-caf whatever – will do just fine.

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon powdered ginger

1 ounce fresh ginger, peeled and grated fine (about 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoons)*
2 cups finely shredded, unpeeled zucchini, packed*
optional: 1 cup finely chopped nuts
1 tablespoon vanilla

* I use a fine-holed grater to both shred the zucchini and grate the ginger, for the smallest bits possible. When grating the ginger, be sure to use only the “puree” you’ve scraped from under the grater, and discard the fibrous parts left in your hand.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Use baking spray (and parchment paper, if desired) to prepare at 9 x 5 loaf pan or a 10-inch tube pan. If you make the 9 x 5 loaf, you will have a small amount of batter left over: make a mini-loaf or a few zucchini muffins.

Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar, oil and eggs together for a few minutes, until thick and a slight yellow ribbon falls from beaters.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and powdered ginger together.

Fold the zucchini, fresh ginger and optional nuts into the sugar-egg mixture. Fold in the flour mixture and vanilla until thoroughly combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan (or pans), filling large loaf pan 2/3 full.

Bake on a center oven rack for about 1 hour (check smaller items sooner), or until tester comes out sticky but mostly dry. Store, wrapped in plastic, for several days at room temperature.

I’ve been following Jane’s blog for some time now.  Back in the pre-Simmer days, when I was writing about building our house, I discovered that other people also wrote about lighting, and stove shopping, and doorknobs. Jane’s blog was filled with design inspiration, great pictures of her garden and the Long Island shore, and featured quick sketches of her family, her travels, her dogs. I dropped in, and stayed.

So, if you read someone’s blog for two years, you know them pretty well, right?

Well, yes. And no.  Each time I’ve met a blogger in person, the effect has been the same: what you see (or in this case, read) is what you get – plus.  That is, you get that voice you read, and more.  You fill in certain gaps: the smile behind the words, seeing how the wheels turn, and putting a real sound to the voice.

And oh, was there sound. Talk and talk and talk. We sat in a restaurant downtown, dipping bread from a breadboard Jane recognized right away. So much fun to sit across from real-life Jane – laughing eyes, UK accent still strong – and build on my Tell Simmer knowledge by listening to her journeys, her family, and the things she loves.

The thing about lunching with a fellow blogger is this: you do a lot of talking. Not so much eating. It’s like making up for lost time, I’d tell Greg, later. He’d ask “what can you possibly talk about for five hours?”  Fair question, but an easy answer. You’re confirming everything you know, and finding out what you don’t know. Back and forth, between bites. It’s simple – whoever’s fork is down…

…is the one listening.

After the world’s most vocal lunch, we walked a few blocks to my house. Oh, she got a tour, and met Greg and Josie, and made much fuss over Cleo – but mostly we stood around the kitchen, talking. I’d baked rugelach that morning, and they were still on a sheet pan. I pulled them off the parchment while we talked, which allowed us to nibble idly at the burnt, melted sugar left on paper.  We sipped Limoncello in little glasses, the last of the stuff I’d made for Josie’s bat mitzvah. Jane brought me a present – gorgeous vintage German cookie molds.

Honestly, why would she think I’d like antique baking stuff?  No idea.

We headed back downtown for coffee, and sat around chatting about Kansas, about New York, about prices and people and why we do we what do, about how we’re all different, and same.   She met a favorite barista, and some of my friends, and some passers-by.  We walked Massachusetts Street, and full of Lawrence booster zeal, I told her more about Lawrence history than she needed to know.

By the time The Guy picked her up and they drove away with rugelach, we’d filled in most of the gaps, lessened the spaces in between.  Thank you, Jane, for the gift of a real voice. I know you’ve got Polly & Sadie, your own lovely black dogs, but just look: after you left, Cleo was despondent.

Come back soon!

——————-

Knitter

Baker

Productivity breakers.

Talk and talk…

…rain, coffee, normal.

————

As we like to say around here, coffee is no longer optional; as in, I don’t think we’re getting special benefits, like perkiness or open eyes – it’s just plain required.  Do you have ten words on coffee?  Spill.

What.

Oh, I’m sorry…the Bat Mitzvah. Were you waiting for news of the Bat Mitzvah?

Well, the full recap will have to wait, at least until I can form whole words again. Luckily, my waking zombie state still allows for posting pictures – so here’s a sampling of our totally crazy, wholly delicious, once-in-a-lifetime weekend; three days in which I’m certain the universe crammed more than 72 hours.

Friday night’s Welcome Dinner featured sunflowers & Jayhawks. Because it was Welcome. To Kansas.

Abe & Jake’s, a riverfront barbed wire factory in Lawrence, converted to a college dance bar. Before the horde arrived.

Notebook favors. In which the 13-year old guys wrote funny things to Josie, then crumpled pages and chucked them in the river. They are suave, the young ones.

A wacky place, like no other.

Vintage never-used restaurant bags, bought on Ebay. They just say woof, no?

Centerpieces constructed from items on the Lawrence Humane Society’s wish list, like paper towels and canned dog food. A little silver spray paint, a little wedding cake logic, and it all got donated in the end.

Girls really do just wanna have fun. Just ask that DJ.

Yes – you, too can cut 200 dog bone-shaped papers in one viewing of “Quantum of Solace.” But if you wish to stick them on a few hundred chocolates, you’ll also need double-sided tape, one daughter and one mother-in-law.

And here is the coolest girl in the world.  Her day began with brilliant Torah reading and a thoughtful speech, but finished in a dance whirl; such debonair young fellows, all beads and cheap sunglasses – who could ask for anything more?

Finally, an extra treat: my friend Melanie’s six-year old son Eli and my cousin Robin’s son Jordi rocked out on stage. For two straight hours. If you want to electrify your next bash, these are the dudes to call.

Dance Party! from imamelanie on Vimeo.


My Mom and Josie. There were also smoked chicken egg rolls, banana pudding and dipped pretzels, teen romance and one great big bar bill. A marvelous time.  We are thankful for our girl, and for the privilege of such a happy day.

Guess what? It’s both.

The laser focus right now is on Josie’s impending Bat Mitzvah, a seismic event counting down in three weeks. Were I a sane-type person, I’d either a) pay someone to do all this, b) let people help me, or c) pay someone to do all this. But we are who we are. So there is rugelach, strawberry and apricot.  There are chocolate chip shortbreads, and there are mint brownies. There are espresso brownies and pecan brownies and cinnamon coffee cake, cut into small pieces specially designed to crumble down one’s dress.

And then there is kugel.

Don’t tell my Aunt Rose – or is it Aunt Ruth? – but I messed with her recipe. I ran the cottage cheese, sour cream & eggs through the blender for silkier texture; in one batch I poured on the cinnamon, and in another, combined pineapple with – ready now? – dried cranberries. Let’s just say I’m glad that Aunt Ruth is a non-Internet using 90-something, and will not get the news from me.

On the plus side, the cranberry-pineapple kugel – made specially for Josie, who loves both – is excellent, and she munches the trimmed ends as fast as I can cut them.

When I’m not mercilessly altering family tradition, I’m baking 200 dog biscuit-shaped cookies (hello, dog theme), stuffing candy into guest bags, and up late sketching centerpiece plans. Glittery dog house, no, striped dog house, no – well, you get the idea.  What I’m saying is that right now, be glad you’re not me. While it’s unlikely you’d ever want to be me anyway, right now is especially not the time.  Be glad you are you.  Can I be you?

On the other plus side, Mother’s Day provided, if not a break in the action, a little progress in action. My mother-in-law and Josie helped with stacks of unthinkable tasks, I was gifted with a speedy new printer, and Greg and I briefly stopped bickering over how much candy should be on what table. At the end of the day we all went out, where I enjoyed a glorious parmesan-crusted filet, truffled fries, creamed spinach and a warm, welcome glass of red. After, we stopped for cappuccino and a leisurely stroll home under cool, beautiful skies.

Back at my dining room table, I gulped the last of my coffee and tied ribbons onto guest bags.

And that’s the way it is here at Kugel-palooza. I said to someone recently, “what is this? When did I become an extra in a shtetl musical?” But – shh, don’t tell my family - it’s okay. We’re quite proud of our girl, and what’s more, I think she might be secretly fond of her crazy mom. Overall, looming kugels aside, a pretty good Mother’s Day.  How was yours?

* during party countdown, expect less frequent but possibly meatier posts, including one juicy story on its way.  Not down, just a bit out – and thank you, as always, for Simmering.

You’re back from Vegas, she laughed.

How did you know we were there? We hadn’t seen them lately.

Oh, I saw it on the blog.

You read the blog? Grinning, me and the Chianti leaned over.  Jeez, I’m so happy to know you’re reading!

She put a hand on my arm.  I scan it.

My friend Peter called one morning last week, and we caught up, talked about dinners, writing, current goings-on. I confessed I’d been procrastinating, and not any regular putting-off, either, but a lethal strain of not-now that includes mentally burying evidence of things I need to do. I’m afraid I’m stuck, I said.  I think I’m stuck.

“What can I do to help you?” he said.

“What?”

“I said, what can I do.  To – help – you.  Today.”

“That is the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Clearly, you haven’t had much of a day.  What can I do?”

Wow.

“You can give me something.”

“What,” he said, “chocolate chips? Brownies?”

“Give me a deadline.”

“What?”

“Give me a deadline.  I…need to finish things.  Writing things, house things, life things.  My own deadlines don’t work.”

“What do you mean, don’t work?”

“They…expire.  I make new ones.”

Silence, then two sips of coffee.  My old penguin mug, chipped.

“Okay,” he said. “You’ve got three weeks.”

“Three weeks for what?”

“To finish whatever you started.”

I put down the penguin.

“Deal.  And thank you.”

“For what?”

“The kick. Exactly right.”

Pulling on my gray pea coat, I’m ready to leave the coffee shop but I pause to chat with a friend, a successful writer.

Jen has wavy brown hair that she pushes back once before disappearing into her novels and non-fiction – quiet and unaware, she gives off no bothersome hum. She likes to sit in the front window nursing a latte, peering at stacked manuscripts, glasses down her nose and pen in hand.  I’ve told her many times how I envy her lack of laptop, that I can’t even write longhand anymore, that surely real ink fosters creative prose.  She’s prolific in a way I’m not and appears to use her time wisely, far away in good writing, meaningful work.

Three days ago, she told me her secret:  “Stare out the window for an hour.  Then write for five minutes.”

I knew it!

Anyway – me standing in a kitchen with floury hands equals a rerun at Simmer. And since this one is not food-related and hails from the old house blog days, it’s probably new to you. From April 1, 2008, please enjoy – again – The Name of the Game.

Last August, the new old house needed a chimney, and as we are not third-generation bricklayers, someone else was going to do it.

Builder Dan gave us a list of proposed subcontractors. He wanted Company X, or maybe Company Y, but he did not want Dick Chilton. As in, “I hope we don’t need to go to Dick Chilton.”

Why? It seems Dick was a masonry prima donna, and had built two reputations: one as “the best around,” and the other as an abrasive, thick-headed jerk.

When X and Y weren’t available, we were forced to go with Dick, and he more than lived up to his reputation. He worked at a glacial place without interruption, glaring at assistants and scowling at bricks. He also scowled at mailmen, truck drivers, birds, leaves, and the stupid people who were paying him well.

We started referring to him as “Dick Chimney,” and don’t bother asking why – I don’t remember, and who among us knows how private jokes begin, anyway? He didn’t speak to us, he would not be introduced to us, would not look at us, but his name was Dick and he worked on the chimney, so he was Dick Chimney.

I confess that between us, we have a lot of private names for people. But this one struck us as especially hilarious, because let’s face it, the title had a certain X-rated ring.

”Who’s on site today?” we’d say. Heh.

“Dick Chimney.” Heh heh heh.

I think we play this shorthand game as a function of both humor and ignorance. We are either cowards who snigger at people from afar, or we really just don’t know their name. Maybe it’s funny, or maybe it’s not, but it is an unbreakable habit, the naming.

Let’s take the petite young barista with a haughty tone – clearly it was our privilege to receive her coffee – Princess Pissypants. Credit Josie for the brilliant Pissypants part.

It is a neverending list of shame. The waiter who rushes dinner is Abrupt Guy. The crunchy fifty-something Nepal trekker is Buddhist Woman. (my e-mail to Greg – “Buddhist Woman’s here. Headed home.”) A pear-shaped retiree holds court in the coffee shop daily at nine. He is Pontificus Blohardus.

Our friend’s southern husband, the one who looks like Morrissey? Kentucky-Fried Morrissey – KFM to those in the know.

I’m sure that listening to us would be quite appalling. I might hate us.

The pale local weather girl is Ghosty. Dreemy is the Thai food server from another planet, and the restaurant host who habitually over-estimates the wait time is The Voice of Doom, as in, oh great, the Voice of Doom is working today.

Some of our other Hall of Namers include Chuck Wagon (sweaty and stout, brings onion sandwiches to the library) Suspicious Guy (why is he looking at us?) and certainly Senor Crappuccino, a barista who repeatedly made lousy drinks and what’s more, filled them only halfway.

But we talked, he improved, and guess what? Senor Ex-Crappuccino.

I’m afraid it’s too late for Josie, who frequently knows people by their pretend-names. Regarding one young college neighbor who likes to run in a rather bouncy manner:

“Booby Girl got home really late last night,” she’ll say. “She was wearing shorts and she was not alone.”

I fear that both of our moms are right, that we are in fact mean and terrible people, but then again, we amuse ourselves and we hurt no one. Come on, if a guy worked on your house every day for six months wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with “P-O-R-N,” wouldn’t you call him Porn T-Shirt Guy?

The Name Game generally doesn’t apply to anyone we like, and though we’re not looking too kind right now, believe me, there are a few. There was the nice quiet guy our handyman used to bring around – the one with no nose. It’s true – he lost his nose in some freak prison accident years ago, and now breathes through two little holes like a gentle, pint-sized Voldemort. So we named him No-Nose.

Mean! Oh, mean, you say? Don’t kid yourself. Once you see a guy with no nose, that is their name.

And then there is Old Shoe. Old Shoe has since moved away, but one night, years ago, his wife drank too much Pinot and casually told me that sleeping with him was like putting on an old shoe.

Oh, Shoe, I’m so sorry. In our little naming world, you are among the sad and unjust. Don’t get me wrong, it gives me a giggle, a fine old Dick Chimney giggle.

But Shoe, I’m just so glad you don’t know who you are.

Dick Chimney at work. Don’t talk to him.

Cold never used to trouble me – and in fact I still adore winter, and before that fall, and rank Kansas summer heat just above root canal. But the fact remains that I am freezing. While walking Cleo yesterday – she loves it, both obvious and oblivious – the world could see only my nose. Encased in two tanks, a thick sweater, tights under jeans, red scarf, big coat, gloves, jammed-down hat and sunglasses, I found myself in a mummified winter state, not altogether unpleasant, an insulated place unlocked by parkas.

Cleo has seen three winters now, but is still deliriously newborn come January, amazed at her paws disappearing in white.  As she romped around and we circled the quiet chill of the park, a lovely mental heater kicked in.  Thinking other thoughts, answering your own questions, replaying scenes from a good day, a bad year – anything but it’s so cold.  That engine is your own pot on the stove, and it lets you kick snow like coconut, forget why you came and believe, with warm conviction, that you don’t mind being there at all.

* Here’s a question – hey Marilyn, where’s the food?  I’m getting sick of all this yammer.

Well my honest friends, I defrosted my fingers over many a delicious bite this week, and they’re all coming your way in the next.  Stay tuned, and stay warm.

After a highly scientific selection process – one that involved a roomful of 60′s computers and throwing beans in the moonlight – the winner of the Simmer Till Done handmade recipe book is…Muddywaters!

Readers may remember that Muddy is also known as Mike, proprietor of the wonderful blog Greasy Skillet. He just happens to live in the vicinity of Simmer HQ, and thus may claim his prize in person…when it’s finished. Congratulations Muddy, and many thanks to everyone for playing along. It made the most delightfully embarrassing weekend reading.