quite unexpected

Sometimes the best things are the simple things, the hidden ones, the unexpected goodness found when you least expect it.

Like Nantucket Pie, for example.

Perhaps this will not surprise you, well-informed reader, but Nantucket Pie--it's a thing! I had no idea. But it's out there. Baking in people's ovens, residing on their food blogs, perched upon dining room tables and kitchen counters. Particularly in Nantucket, I assume.

I'm told that the late Laurie Colwin has a classic version of this recipe in her book More Home Cooking. The recipe featured here today, however, came to me a few Saturdays ago in a slightly more haphazard way than, you know, a book. (As is appropriate, I imagine. My life feels much more haphazard than your typical glossy cookbook photograph.)

I purchase my cranberries faithfully from the cranberry lady at my local farmers market, who also sells blueberries in the summertime, offers a plethora of surely-scrumptious-yet-extremely-expensive jams (due to the latter part of that description, I have purchased approximately one) and is the only certified organic berry vendor at the market.

Yet I must say that Cranberry Lady is not particularly...friendly. She's not unpleasant, just distracted. Or extremely disinterested? I'm not entirely sure. On the Saturday morning in question, after she handed me my box of cranberries, I was responding with an overenthusiastic smile (in hopes of lifting her spirits) and turning to go when she reached toward me again, a brochure in her hand. No eye contact. Then one word, in complete monotone: "Here."

Now as it happens, what Cranberry Lady lacks in enthusiasm, her pamphlet provides in abundance. It is all about the humble cranberry! The pamphlet comes by way of the Michigan Cranberry Marketing Committee--which I didn't even know we had! I'm learning so many new things. "Say yes to Michigan cranberries!" the pamphlet instructs me with evident enthusiasm.

And indeed, I do. Yes, Michigan cranberries, yes.

And so it came to pass that a few days later, whilst making dinner with Ben and craving dessert (as is typical) to accompany it, I remembered the notably brief recipe I'd spotted in the brochure. Nantucket Pie, or Henrietta's Easy Cranberry Pie, it was called, though as I scanned the ingredients and extremely concise instructions, it seemed unlikely to me that this eight-line recipe was going to produce anything much like a pie. It was mysterious. I wanted dessert. We gave it a go.

Before we knew it, my apartment was filled with the scent of comfort and warmth and the holidays. Dessert was completed before dinner, but we showed tremendous restraint and ate our vegetables first.

And oh, but what a worthwhile wait! The pie was scrumptious. As I will not be the first to note, this recipe produces a "pie" that is not very pie-like. It's more reminiscent of a cake, a simple one, the kind I most enjoy. Most of the cranberries linger near the bottom, and the moist cake rises between them, culminating with a crisp top. The flavor is simple and delicious.

I made it again last night, and after I had slowly eaten my slice, pausing between each bite, I was very, very sad that it was over.

Part of the goodness of the Nantucket Pie is that its deliciousness and my sense of culinary success were so utterly unexpected. Hardly any ingredients, obscenely simple instructions, an incredibly quick preparation, the mysterious label of "pie" for something quite decidedly not pie--I had very low expectations.

If you think something is going to be good and it is good, that's wonderful. But if you have no idea what is coming and it turns out to be this good...well. That is another thing entirely.

And I probably don't even need to tell you outright, but all of this is much like my life.

Yours, too, I imagine.

Nantucket Cranberry Pie
Adapted from the Michigan Cranberry Marketing Committee brochure


2 1/2 cups cranberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, no need to defrost)
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped, optional
1/3 - 1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup (3 ounces) butter, melted
3/4 - 1 cup sugar (if you like, swap out 1/4 cup for brown sugar)
1 cup all-purpose flour (or, 1/2 cup white + 1/2 cup whole wheat)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat over to 375 F.

Butter a 9-or-so-inch pie pan. Pour in the cranberries and then the walnuts, if using. Sprinkle the first 1/3 - 1/2 cup sugar on top.

Combine the remaining ingredients and beat until incorporated. Pour the mixture over the cranberry layer.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the top of the pie/cake is a lovely shade of light brown.

Yield: 6 slices

let the immeasurable come.

 

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
by Mary Oliver (from West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems, 1997)

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything--
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker--
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing--
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet--
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

to win hearts.

In an effort to win the hearts of members of my sweetheart's extended family this weekend, I baked a cake for their picnic reunion. I still tried to be charming while with them, of course, but it was nice, people, to have a beautiful and delicious cake as backup.

I was taking a few chances, true, with my choice of baked good. Among them: what if I couldn't find sufficient rhubarb at the market on Saturday morning? what if the cake didn't cooperate when flipped? what if I dropped it in the grass as we walked to the picnic location? what if it turned out to be not as interesting a creation as I had anticipated? what if it was not, in fact, delicious?

But, dear readers, I had nothing to fear. And as my heart-winning endeavor seemed rather effective, or at least not ineffective, I thought I ought to share it with you, just in case someone out there needs to win over a heart or two.

And furthermore, after all of that gushing about rhubarb, I felt obliged to offer at least one recipe based on this market treasure before its season slips away--because it is, most unfortunately, slipping. The days of the farmers market, while entirely glorious, also provoke fear that I will miss some wonder of a fruit or vegetable in the prime of its season, or that I will fail to enjoy said wonder sufficiently, or that I will suffer the fate of discovering the perfect recipe for strawberries or fava beans or sorrel--or rhubarb!--just after that ingredient has vanished from the market.

It has been known to happen.

But! I had been doing very well this year in preventing such unthinkable tragedies, having pounced upon the rhubarb immediately upon its arrival to the market and then regularly buying more than I could easily/sanely work through in a week. And yet I almost missed my opportunity to bake this cake, and that, of course, would have elicited no affections from anyone.

Thankfully, at one farmer's stall, when I had nearly given up hope, a few lingering red stalks hiding alongside a pile of asparagus caught my eye--enough for this cake, plus a small stash for the freezer. A narrow escape!

And why, you may ask, does this cake deserve the label of heart-winning? It looks like a fruitcake, I hear you whisper apprehensively.

Well. Perhaps it's the warm sugar pocketed between sweet slices of rhubarb and bright threads of ginger, or the way the sugar caramelizes to the deepest brown hue and crisps perfectly along the edges. Or perhaps it's the moist cake hiding below that lovely layer of fruit, dense with oats and more brown sugar. Possibly the compelling power rests in the delight inspired by a flipped-up cake, or in knowledge of the avoided-danger such flipping requires.

Or maybe it's the desire to win those hearts in the first place, and not so much the cake itself, that wields magic. Perhaps--just perhaps--the cake has nothing to do with it.

Whatever the case may be, I urge you to make this cake. It will give you confidence, and at the end of the day, that's probably the point.

So go on now--win some hearts.

Note: If rhubarb has left your local market and you have none lingering in your freezer, I imagine you could swap in another fruit; just be sure to dial down the sugar a bit, as rhubarb is quite tart.

Rhubarb Ginger Downside-Up/Upside-Down Cake
Adapted (hardly) from Tim Hirschfeld's recipe, found both at food52 and on his blog, Bona Fide Farm Food

For the rhubarb layer:
2 1/4 cups rhubarb, 1/2 inch slices
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter

For the oatmeal cake:
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 cup boiling water
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup flour (I used half white whole wheat + half all-purpose)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine the oats, boiling water and first 1/4 cup of butter in a mixing bowl, or in the pan in which you heated the water on the stovetop if you chose that method. Set aside to cool.

Preheat the over to 350 F. Place the rest of the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet, and set the skillet in the oven to melt the butter. Remove the pan when the butter is just melted, and spread the brown sugar on top. In a separate bowl, combine the rhubarb and ginger. Spread this mixture evenly over the butter and brown sugar. Set aside.

In the empty rhubarb bowl, combine the flour(s), baking powder, baking soda and salt.

To the cooled oatmeal mixture, add the egg, both sugars and the vanilla. Stir to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet; mix until combined.

Spread the cake batter uniformly over the rhubarb. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the top of the cake is golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean (relatively so--recall that gooey, caramelized layer nestled below!).

Let the cake cool in the skillet for at least five minutes. Run a knife around its edges, and gently invert it onto a cake plate or a sheet pan.

Allow the cake to cool for at least twenty minutes before slicing and enjoying thoroughly--at home, on a picnic or wherever you might be. Hearts will be won.

Yield: 8-10 slices

ode to rhubarb

I know that I am not the only one singing the praises of rhubarb, but please, humor me. Rhubarb, along with asparagus, is one of the first types of local produce to arrive at the farmers market here in my home state of Michigan. I watch for it, waiting in anticipation as the days get warmer, and then it finally appears, heralding summertime, whispering of all that is to come.

So naturally, I wrote you a poem about how much I love rhubarb. That's a perfectly normal thing to do, right?

Roasted rhubarb, above, adapted from such recipes as those of Molly Wizenberg at Orangette and Luisa Weiss, the Wednesday Chef. Rhubarb tarts with a corn flour crust, below, from Kim Boyce's brillant Good to the Grain. This recipe can also be found online at the Smitten Kitchen.

Ode to Rhubarb

Your long stalks

Deepest red

Pink fading to green ends

They beckon me from where they rest
On the tables at the farmers market

And in an instant
I am dreaming of crisps and cobblers

Of warm, bright pockets of fruit

Encased within the crumb of a perfect scone

Or under the layer of brown sugar and butter

Topping my mother's quick bread,

Breakfast on the last days of school before summer
I am dreaming of ruby-red juices
Threatening to escape the confines
Of a small, misshapen tart

Which I will call rustic

In explanation of its imperfections

I am dreaming of filling my bright red pot

With chopped stalks
Of a matching hue,

Stirred with sugar and vanilla

And a splash of wine
(Red or white, I've yet to decide)

They will fall apart

And become, like magic,

Something I never know quite what to call

But will gladly put atop my oatmeal

And over ice cream and yogurt

And beneath soft pillows of whipped cream

I am pulled back to reality

As I hear the old man say,

Why not two pounds?

Why just one?

(I think to myself that
He is so thin
Like a stalk of rhubarb)
And standing there in front of his stall
Your beauty before me
I am easily convinced

As I leave the market,

My bag is heavy

And I open my heart

To summer

bounty.

I have been waiting--rather impatiently, I'll admit--for the start of the farmers' market here in my dear Grand Rapids. I've been reading food blogs written by folks on the west and east coasts, and as they rave about the markets and their rhubarb and strawberries and ramps, I have been, frankly, filled with jealousy and a great deal of impatience.

Thankfully, the first of May finally arrived, and with it, the spring opening of my local farmer's market!

I was overjoyed.

I love farmers' markets. I love the fresh and beautiful produce and plants and eggs and cheese and baked goods and jam. I love the bustle of people. I love being out on a Saturday morning when the air is crisp and the sun bright. I love the farmers: the lovely old man who delights in the brightly colored stems of chard just as I do, the folks with the pretty display of baskets who will employ one of my dearest friends this summer, the couple with the interesting selection of jams--and the husband's helpful suggestion to pour his favorite of them on ice cream for a summer treat, the people with the plethora of wonderful whole grain flours...

It's early yet, so there wasn't an enormous array of produce, mostly herbs and potted plants and eggs and such, but I didn't mind. I just wanted to be there. I wanted to absorb that spirit of springtime, to revel in the joy of the shifting of seasons manifest in new varieties of produce from week to week, forcing us to move with the earth, encouraging us to live and eat accordingly, breaking up monotony with new life and delightful change.

I came home with spirits high and a bag filled with the bounty of early springtime.

happiness. yes.

Today, I am happy.

In this season of my life, I am happy.

And it is really good to be happy.

But I am realizing, more and more all the time, that happiness does not result from today being what it is or from this season of my life being what it is or from any one influence in my life. Happiness comes when I choose it, when I look for reasons to be happy and wrap my fingers tightly around them, when I pull them up and lift them high above my head, when I open my hand so that the light falls on them and no one, not me or anyone else, can deny their existence.

This is nothing profound or new, not at all. But it's what I am learning in this coursing, continuous life, the one unmarked by exams and due dates and semester breaks, the one in which I make choices for significant periods of time and consider jobs that have no date of completion... you know, my great-big-real-world adult life. I want it to be a happy life, and I am learning that it can be happy, regardless of the good and the bad and the otherwise of what happens within it.

I could choose to look at the frustrations, at the confusion of the moment or the uncertainty of the future or that fact that life is kind of ridiculous. Because, of course, it is not all rosy here: I spent a recent afternoon hour in tears on the telephone with my mother because I am so confused about my next steps. I really miss my sister and brother-in-law and all of my friends that have moved away. I will need to find a new place to live and go about the awful business of moving once again come January, whether I stay in GR or go elsewhere. I cannot seem to catch all of the genius mice that live here in my flat, the mice that keep on reproducing their genes of brilliance, increasing the population of really intelligent, not-fooled-by-traps-of-any-sort mice and causing me to fear that one day the ceiling will break open and the whole colony of thousands and thousands of genius mice will run squeaking through my home, like that scene in Ratatouille where the rats pour out of the old woman's ceiling and she shoots them with her rifle (though, of course, I wouldn't reenact that part).

Now, I do see those things, the frustrations and the sadness and the confusion. I would be being dishonest with myself if I ignored them. But then I look deeper. Instead of dwelling on these things or basing my happiness on life turning out ever-shiny and bright and easy, I am looking for the reasons for happiness, reasons that are always there, regardless of the state of my life in any one moment.

And yes, things have been relatively calm for the last several weeks and far less tumultuousness resides in my mind and heart today than did two months ago. I do have a quiet flat for the weekend, void of roommates, in which I can turn up George Winston's December album (too soon for Christmas? no. never. more on that later.), sink into my chair by the window, drink my strong black coffee and rest and think. This month did bring -- finally! -- routine in my job and an income that pays the bills and possibilities for the future. And I do have particularly wonderful friends and family and live in a particularly lovely city.

But I could choose to see or ignore all of that. And I could choose to see or ignore the wonder of a campfire on the beach in mid-November... the beauty of the many kinds of squash on display at the farmers' market... the humor in my dad's insistance on converting every moment of my visit home last weekend into celebration of his birthday... the simple joy in making fresh-from-the-bog-cranberry salad and cranberry bread with my mom in her bright, clean kitchen while home... the tremendous peace and truth that seep into my soul whenever I am with my dear friend Nicole, one of the most incredible and wise women I know... the wholesomeness of the food she and I ate together at Gaia this afternoon...

And I choose to see.

Nothing new, nothing complex, nothing I haven't talked about here before. But today, I am filled with joy and peace, and I didn't want to keep it to myself.

Welcome Morning

by Anne Sexton

There is joy

in all:

in the hair I brush each morning,

in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

that I rub my body with each morning,

in the chapel of eggs I cook

each morning,

in the outcry from the kettle

that heats my coffee

each morning,

in the spoon and the chair

that cry "hello there, Anne"

each morning,

in the godhead of the table

that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

each morning

All this is God,

right here in my pea-green house

each morning

and I mean,

though often forget,

to give thanks,

to faint down by the kitchen table

in a prayer of rejoicing

as the holy birds at the kitchen window

peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

dies young.

good/bad (this is life).

(Good)

A few nights ago, I went on the most wonderful run, and oh yes, my friends, it is fall indeed. As I ran, the wind whisked through the leaves, leaves colored green to yellow to orange to red like fire, and I could hear the trees creaking in that erie way they do when the cold settles deep inside of them like it settles now already in my bones. I ran past a football field and thought of being sixteen and caught up in that strange and completely different world that is high school (thank God it's over). Canadian geese honked loudly in the distance as I passed Reed's Lake, bringing to mind nights at the wetlands in Midland with my dad when I was young; I never loved it quite as much as he or my sister did but was drawn in whatever small way to something in nature and thrilled to make my dad so happy just for having come. I ran down these streets that I've run down so many times before, past houses and down sidewalks whose shapes have become so familiar, and the smell of fall nearly overwhelmed me...

For whatever strange reason, after a day that seemed rather inconsequential, happiness was overwhelming me as well. And the mystery of changing seasons and the memories bombarding me and the hope of the future threw me into this strange place of beauty and I felt so deeply that the world is new the world is new the world is new.

And then the next day started so well. I went to the farmers' market (which, as many of you already know, is one of my most favorite things in the entire world), and the farmers were all bundled up and my toes were cold and I wandered through with the handful of other people that come out to sparsely populate the Wednesday morning market. I bought apples and tomatoes and zucchini and eggplant and onions for my house and talked to one of my favorite farmers, a darling old man with surprisingly straight, white teeth who I first bonded with early this summer over the beauty of swiss chard. I went to breakfast alone at Gaia, and it was warm and wonderful and peaceful. I talked to the waitress and listened to the rapid flurry of Spanish bouncing between two Puerto Rican men and a little girl sitting up by the window and wrote and drank a copious amount of coffee.

And I was feeling relatively, surprisingly positive about life in general.

(Bad)

Then I went to work, job 2, nonprofit 2, currently part-time/temporary but with promise of becoming part-time/not temporary. At the end of a few mundane-but-not-so-bad hours of sorting and filing, I found out that the possibility of the job becoming more permanent had lessened significantly.

And suddenly I did not feel quite so positive about life in general.

None of this should have been surprising. I knew, first of all, that things weren't completely settled in my life, and they never will be because life just isn't that way. And for weeks now, I have been telling people that I think that this phase of life I am entering into is one in which things will remain in flux, up in the air, shifting constantly. Whatever happens next, I realized mid-summer, is very unlikely to be a full-time job. With health benefits. Check back in a few years, and even then don't count on it. I've become quite okay with this.

And yet. And yet, I am tired, I am tired of being tired, I am tired of being confused, I am tired of the puzzle pieces of my life not fitting together. (Yes, Kyle VZ, don't you worry, Old Stacy will never go away completely.)

And this is the thing: loosening our grip on our lives, choosing peace (thank you Ryan), knowing that life is hard and crazy but choosing to enjoy living anyway... these are things we must do every day. Of course it's still hard. Of course things are still uncertain. I have to throw up my hands and give it all over, every day.

As part of my job at Crossroad Bible Institute (part-time job 1), I read through the Bible studies completed by our students, who are currently in the US prison system (more description of this job later). Yesterday, I read the following in one man's prayer:

"Le entrego todas mis cargas, mis angustias, pesares, anhelos, deseos, planes, mi vida, mi ser y que sea lo que Dios quiera." (More or less, "I give him all of my burdens, my distress, grief, yearnings, desires, plans, my life, my being and that it may be what God wants.")

All of it? Wow. But yes, all of it. I give him all of it today, I'll probably need to do it again in an hour or so and tomorrow I'll do it again. And to really mean this is terrifying, but it's the only right option. So may it -- all of it -- be what he wants.

And I know even now that it will be good, and it will be bad. May I choose to enjoy living, regardless.