Delicious Pie Experiments

I've recently been exploring the world of free-form tarts, and I've discovered to my absolute delight that they are both delicious and easy to make.

The crust is simple: not quite as crumbly as pie crust, and you can roll it out to any size and fold it however you like. The filling is even easier: just a pile of fruit, lightly tossed in sugar, with whatever spice feels right at the moment.

The one pictured here was filled with nectarines tossed in a little sugar and lined with blackberry jam, and oh dear god was it good.

The basic recipe for the crust is as follows (makes enough for 2 medium size tarts):

2.5c flour
3 Tbsp sugar 1.5 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter
2/3c ice water

Mix dry ingredients together, then add chilled butter in tiny chunks. Work butter in to flour with your fingers or a pastry blade until there are small flat pieces sitting intact within the flour. Gradually add ice water until the dough is just moist enough to stick together, then wrap in plastic and let chill for an hour.

And the rest is intuitive! Cut the dough in half, roll into a rough circle, fill the middle with whatever fruit you've decided to use (adding a little sugar if needed) and maybe a little bit of flour or some chopped nuts to absorb the juices as they come out, then fold the edges over the top and bake at 400 degrees for about 1/2 hour.

Enjoy the deliciousness.

Cookies of Awesomeness

So I promised a friend I'd share this recipe, and this seems like an excellent place to do it. It's a variant on oatmeal cookies that has gotten progressively more unique as I've experimented with it over the years, and that at this point is pretty much my own. Feel free to alter it further, in whatever way speaks to you!

Ingredients:
14 Tbsp butter (1 3/4 sticks)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup applesauce (this takes the place of eggs)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups rolled oats
10 oz chocolate chips
cinnamon to taste
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

The process is pretty straightforward (in that it works like every other cookie in the world): cream together butter & sugars; add vanilla & applesauce then mix until smooth; mix in flour, almond meal, baking soda, and salt; add cinnamon, coconut, and oats, then mix in walnuts and chocolate chips at the very end. Drop on cookie sheet.

Bake at 365 degrees for approx 12 minutes.

Note: There really aren't any eggs in here. If you feel compelled to add them, switch them in for the applesauce. Also, you can easily make this gluten free by substituting almond meal for the flour, I just don't do it because it makes the cookies a little crumbly for my taste. Enjoy!

Cottonwood Weather

The owlets have fledged, but the forest continues to offer surprises. I went for a walk in the woods yesterday and discovered that it was snowing cottonwood fluff. It was like taking a left turn and ending up in Narnia... I guess there's still magic in this world, after all!

Barred Owlets!

The owlets are out of the nest and just about ready to fly! I saw these two stretching their wings and hopping around the branch next to their nest tonight, it can't be too much longer until they leave it altogether. (I like the one peering out of the nest like Mr. Magoo.)

Owl Watch (Redux)

I visited the owls again last night, and caught this one peeking his head out of the nest as if to say "hello". It's the perfect way to spend an evening around the full moon - we sat out for a couple hours, listening to the forest settle into nighttime around us (the wrens fall silent first, then the robins, before the owls begin to call), then hiked back in the dark without even bothering to use our flashlights. The owl calls followed us all the way back to the road.

Owl Watch

I spent last night sitting in Tryon Creek Park, watching a nesting pair of barred owls while the sun slipped beneath the horizon and the forest settled into darkness. It was incredibly peaceful; after a while I began to feel like part of the forest, and when I left it was like I took the stillness of the woods with me. Is there a better form of meditation?

Travels With Mom

I just got back from a great trip to Japan: my mom and took a pilgrimage to see the snow cranes up in Hokkaido, and stuck around to play tourist for another couple weeks. It was oddly cathartic - after years of visiting Japan on business, I finally went for fun, and I feel like I've gotten to see a whole different side of the country.

I loved the traditional inns. I'd never stayed at one before - partly because I imagined them to be less friendly toward foreigners, and partly because I didn't know the rules around sleeping on tatami mats and using the traditional shared baths. But my mom and I are old hands now! We sat in one of the traditional baths outside during a snow storm, learned to properly tie our Yukatas through trial and error (my mom is now especially adept at it), and got extremely comfortable sleeping on the floor. I was also very pleasantly surprised by how much Japanese came back to me - I'll never find work as a translator, but I remembered enough to be polite to the people we encountered and order lunch in noodle shops, which is much more than I'd hoped.

Among the other highlights of our trip: we went to the snow festival in Sapporo, took a boat out onto the drift ice in Abashiri, hiked out to see the snow monkeys in Nagano, and spent the night in a temple in Koyasan (where we got to wake up for the dawn service and everything). My mom found a used kimono store in every town we visited, and came back with some absolute treasures. And I got to see some very old friends in Tokyo, and came back feeling like I'd reclaimed some part of my past that had been lost.

All told, maybe the best 3 weeks I've ever spent.

New Mexico sunshine... the perfect antidote for a grey Portland winter.

For my 40th birthday, my mother gave me 10 straight days of sun and over 9,000 cranes. We took a road trip out to the Bosque del Apache Crane Festival and went out every night to see the birds land on the lake. It was magical.



This birthday was strangely difficult for me; I don't really mind being 40, but I'd somehow imagined myself at a more stable place in life when I reached this age. I'm still in Portland, still paddling kayaks when the weather's nice and baking bread when it isn't, but I still feel a bit like a stranger here and I have yet to figure out how I want to make a living. What I'd give for a little clarity!

On the upside, I'm healthier and more balanced than I've probably ever been in my adult life, and I have the luxury of figuring all this out on my own time table. I count myself extremely lucky.

Catching Up

For those of you who saw "Into the Wild" a few too many times, no, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or met a terrible end on the side of a mountain. Quite the opposite, really... I had a lovely, lazy drive up the coast last summer, stopping to visit friends and explore promising bits of wilderness, and got so settled into the rhythm of travel that I never got around to updating my blog.

I'm in Oregon now - I came through here this summer and decided that it was the right place to call home for awhile - but I've fallen in love with the entire stretch of coastline between San Francisco and Vancouver, BC.

The redwoods in Northern California feel like a cathedral when the sun breaks through the trees, and there was one spot on the foggy coast where I stopped and found a sea otter sitting on a log in the middle of a lagoon, staring at me like he was the tourist and I was a bit of local wildlife. The light in the North Cascades makes me wish that I could paint, and the still gray waters of the northern sound make me glad that I can paddle. I am happy here.

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I still don't have any kind of long term plan... I've been working on building a business with a former colleague but it hasn't come together in quite the way that we'd hoped, so for the moment I remain content climbing mountains and paddling kayaks (and baking bread when the weather's uncooperative).

If you happen to find yourself in the northwest, please look me up & say hi!