smitten kitchen

The way I see it, you’ve got almost two days to make some resolutions and so I’d like to gently bug you about one thing: have you made the no-knead bread yet? I suspect that you haven’t. I suspect that despite swarming hoards of eager testers praising its armor-like crust and skyscraper heights of flavor, you are still thinking “Its yeast. It must be scary.” Well, I think that resolutions of eating less and this time you really mean it, reading books which really do bore you and to say more nice things about your people you don’t like is truly overrated, and not that you asked, but I think we should all instead choose to treat ourselves better, that we should seek out richer, brighter and more satiating experiences. I hope you have an excellent new year.

On the wall was a dress that I had embroidered. It said “Ich habe genug.” Which is a Bach Cantata. Which I thought meant, “I’ve had it, I can’t take any more, give me a break.” But I was wrong. It means “I have enough.” And that is utterly true. I happen to be alive. End of discussion. But I will go out and buy a hat. — Maira Kalman, The Principles of Uncertainty

In honor of the thirtieth and final day of NaBloPoMo, I dialed up something a little extra-special for you. What, don’t I deserve a break?

Yet, I’ve made it to the finish line and even enjoyed it plus or minus a day or two, but I won’t tell you which ones. Furthermore, I’m exactly the sort of person who likes to pretend that she did this, you know, because she was going to do it anyway and not, perhaps, because she saw an exhausting and difficult challenge, thus I technically started my daily posting a full two days early. God, I’m such a show-off, aren’t I? It also means that I’ve got something on tap for tomorrow and even… well, let’s only plan a day at a time, m’kay? [Did I say that? Just kidding!]

But, I won’t just leave you with just a picture of my dumplings (which were awesome) or my pad thai (which was less so); nope, I’m leaving you with some pictures of my filthy kitchen, with an attempt to class them up in black and white. I actually meant to do this earlier this month, but the level of scrub-down this kitchen will require before being publicly viewable by my obsessive standards really just made me want to take a nap. Today I’ve just given up and you’re going to see it in all of its grimy glory.

We start the tour with my OCD spice rack which, despite the fact that it causes verbalized concern over my mental stability from everyone who steps into the kitchen, I love more than I should. I adore having my spices readily accessible, and the tins protect them from both the bright sunlight and my cleaning wrath, as they all look so nice out there together. I promise, this is the end of the Martha Stewart part of the tour.

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On my old iVillage.com site, someone once asked me what the trick was to making those lattice-topped pie crusts fusspots like me hold in such high regard. I admitted that many years ago, before the Food Network was the behemoth it is today, the adorable Sarah Moulton once showed her audience a method of criss-crossing those pieces so simple, I haven’t struggled with torn pieces since. Even Alex quickly learned the Moulton Method, and remains unintimidated by pie season, which is great because you know, one of us has to roll out the doughs next week!

People who have been reading this site since ever before the iVillage year might remember my sad-but-true affection for Microsoft Paint when I need to explain something but lack the language, an all-too-common state for me. Well, I’ve done it again, and I’m going to present it without comment except to say that I hope you find this helpful in either pie-making or resting assured, once and for all, that I’ve gone off the deep end.

[Best viewed at full-size.]

But wait! There’s more!

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At Sunday’s final bread class, I was a little slow-moving after Saturday night’s festivities and the cause of last week’s cupcake extravaganza. We focused on whole-grain breads: semolina, Swiss rye, seeded rye and pumpernickel, and though I was a little, um, dehydrated, I think I did all right, surprising myself by getting all four doughs together before noon. It was at this point that I realized I might just have achieved my goal in this class — which was not, by the way, to effectively knead bread with a margarita headache — but to get comfortable enough with the process that I could dive into recipes confidently and know instinctively what to do if things get off-course (or underslept). I’m almost there, and not a moment too soon, because the instructor dug up a recipe for Russian Black Bread for me with about 20 ingredients and it’s calling to me. No rest for the weary, or at least certifiably insane, I suppose.

As there are few things better on earth than a grilled cheese sandwich on seedless rye with a slice of tomato and arugula, I was pretty excited for my take-home bounty and while it did not disappoint, I have to confess that the next day, just the appearance of all those loaves of bread making it impossible to tightly shut our freezer made me feel a bloated, too. Is it possible to have a bread hangover? Fifteen hours of bread baking over three weeks is quite a bit, and while I wouldn’t trade the class or what I’ve learned for anything, those leafy greens and roasted squash are looking mightily more appealing these days. When this phase passes, as I am certain it will, I’m certain we have enough stashed away to get us through the long winter and then some.

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Sometime over the last couple years — arguably, just as this carbohydrate castoff moment has crossed the American table, or more likely in subversive rebellion of it — I’ve become obsessed with baking bread. There’s something so elemental, primitive about setting fungi loose in milled grains to feast! ferment! to their unicellular heart’s content, guiding it along with humidity and simple sugars and just when things can’t get any better for the little guys — Wohoo! It’s warm in here! — well, we off them so they’ll taste better for us. Hey, I said primitive, right?

So, it is with unbridled excitement that I began at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning the first of three five-hour bread baking classes at the ICE, the perfect 30th birthday present from Alex after months of shameless hints from me. Exactly as I had hoped, I learned a whole lot of new things, some of which I will happily sum up for you in a hopefully less-than-five-hour format.

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