(Sort of) Jammie Dodgers of Hope

I broke another coffee pot this morning.

I say "another" since this is, rather spectacularly, the third coffee pot I have broken in my life, specifically in the last 5 years. Both of us at Beetle HQ are pretentious and affected and therefore eschew "pedestrian" drip coffee in favour of French Press. And because we both drink it at the same time and are freakishly possessive of our own blends of coffee (truly, the ridiculousness in our house knows no bounds and is I believe getting worse every day), we employ TWO presses every morning, one for each of us. This may seem crazy, but were you ever to witness the alternative and its subsequent emotional and psychological fallout, you would understand.

My French Press is (or rather, was until two hours ago) a gorgeous double walled thing of beauty from Bodum. (see image at right) It is now a large heap of shards in the bottom of the rubbish bin. This time I actually, helpfully, managed to shatter it on top of the kitchen block. I'd like to think that as time goes on I grow more discerning in my shattering skills. The first time was truly glorious. I smashed it against the faucet in the kitchen sink and spent the next two hours trying to pick tiny pieces of glass out of the drain. Points for contained mess, but serious deductions for length of time involved. The second time I really and truly dropped it on the floor of my apartment, reducing the amount of walkable space in my already infinitesimal kitchen to approximately 6 square inches, and pushing back "coffee and newspaper time" significantly as of course, being me, I couldn't move forward until I had swept, dusted, vacuumed, and for good measure washed the kitchen floor.

I would like to point out that one of the aspects of the double walled pot, as advertised on the Bodum website, is that it is, a direct quote, "unbreakable."

I live to defy convention, clearly.

Anyway. This morning brought the grand total to three. And after vacuuming, apologising to the cat for several minutes, and digging out one of the emergency pots we have above the stove (oh, dear reader, we have three backups FOR REAL YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW FAR THIS GOES.) I was able to enjoy coffee and my current murder mystery (Raven Black by Ann Cleeves; Book 1 of the Shetland Island Quartet), only occasionally interrupted by Mum asking the standard morning questions like "ok, so what IS a jpeg, exactly?" and "why is everyone on Twitter it just seems so stupid?"

But moving on. To cookies.

The criteria this week was that I had to use the Strawberry Fig jam we'd bought at a fair in the Berkshires. (I find it helps if I give myself SOME kind of guideline because otherwise it's just a recipe free for all brain overload and the sheer number of baking possibilities makes me hyperventilate. I swear, you guys, sometimes being me is not the funnest thing in the world.)

But. Just because I've narrowed it down to "involving Strawberry Fig Jam" does not mean that the search is over. Far from it. I'm trying to continue down the "weather change by suggestion baking" path by making things that are vaguely spring-like, or at least not overtly cold-weather. So I toyed with the idea of making a sponge cake and layering it with jam, and then with making jam rolls, or even Jammie Dodgers . . .

This is a Jammie Dodger. 

See? It's a black hole.

But it was actually the Jammie Dodger idea that got me going.

Beetle, I said to myself. Beetle. Make a shortbread-y biscuit with a Strawberry Fig jam filling. That is perfect.

But Beetle, I responded. Beetle. Isn't that a thumbprint? And haven't you made about a gazillion thumbprints in the last few months? Aren't you getting a little boring with these thumbprints?

Ohhhh but BEETLE, I said back. BEETLE. WAIT FOR IT. I'm going to make a shortbread-y biscuit but put WALNUTS IN IT so that it will be a WALNUT THUMBPRINT WITH STRAWBERRY FIG FILLING AND DOESN'T THAT SOUND BETTER AND MORE INTERESTING AND POTENTIALLY DELICIOUS?

To which, I said right back to myself. YES. YES IT DOES, BEETLE. WELL DONE. 

So.

WALNUT THUMBPRINTS WITH STRAWBERRY FIG JAM*

*for real, typing "thumbprint" is apparently one of the hardest things ever it's taken me about an hour to get through the last paragraph

The dough for these is the best all-round butter cookie dough I've come across, namely the Joy of Cooking "Rich Roll Cookies." They are buttery and delicious and I've used them for thumbprints, sandwich cookies, cut out cookies, everything. I've had equal success with putting them straight into the oven (like here) out of the mixing bowl, or chilling and rolling and cutting, and it doesn't seem to make any difference what you do with these, they will come out really nicely. And, as I just found out, adding nuts doesn't have a bad effect either.

Walnuts and Strawberries and Figs work together, right? RIGHT. 

If there is a more spring-like and hopeful image than freshly beaten butter and sugar, my name's not Beetle. 

I stirred in 12 oz. of chopped walnuts right at the end, then went from there. Joy of Cooking says to chill the dough for an hour, but since I was just going to hand form balls and do a smoosh in the middle, chilling would just be silly and waste time on both ends. 

I was worried that 12 oz would not be enough nuts . . . 

And then that it would be too much . . . 

But thankfully, they had a Goldilocks moment and 12 oz. was JUST RIGHT. 

Gotta say, too, plain old Buttery Walnut cookies . . . not the worst thing on earth. 

But if jam is on offer . . .

I mean. It would be rude to refuse, no? 

That's what I thought. 

So the mission was to use the Strawberry Fig Jam in a baked good that hinted at warmer weather to come. And if I simultaneously figured out that adding nuts to my basic butter cookie recipe did NOT ruin it, but in fact enhanced it given the right circumstances, so much the better.

And somehow strawberries and walnuts and figs DO kind of conjure up sun and porches and sitting outside enjoying the breeze, no? You know, actually wearing dresses with bare legs, bringing a sweater "just in case", checking your face for freckles at the end of the day . . .

Do they do that? I hope they do. I really hope they do. Because in another few weeks, I think the entirety of New England is going to mutiny and possibly keelhaul every local meteorologist on sight.

OPTIMISTIC JAMMIE DODGERS

JAMMIE DODGERS OF HOPE

We'll get there in the end, you guys. We will. And until then . . . well.

Cookie? 

Belated Cookies and Explanations

Things That Prevented Me From Doing This Post Last Week and/or This Weekend

Anise Cookies that are the subject of this Belated Post

• Bobby the grocery checkout guy who felt the need to explain why he was bagging my groceries the way he was for 15 minutes. Bobby is 245 years old and has hearing trouble. 
• We bought a new table for the library! This is actually a SUPER HAPPY bullet point. I've been wanting to for a long time, and so has Mum, it has just never been mutually expressed at the right moment. However, walking into the corner for the 23470298th time prompted me to, um, tactfully say that I think we should buy a new one. So we did. ON THE INTERNET, NO LESS. As you can imagine, this took A REALLY LONG TIME, interspersed as it was with borderline hostile discussions of finish and colour, openly hostile discussions of oval vs. rectangular, and accusations on both sides of dictator-like behavior. We got there in the end, but we both had to lie down in darkened rooms afterwards. 
• I would like to note that the table we currently use (upon which I am resting my feet at the current time) is old enough to have hosted a significantly smaller diaper-clad Beetle in her sassy seat when it was in our apartment in Cambridge. Many a bowl of Cheerios has been upset on its surface. 
• The disinfecting of every surface in the house in a fit of stress-induced germaphobic cleaning. This included disinfecting the cats with PETA-approved-skin-enhancing-wipes.
• Begging the cat to get out from under my bed after she headbutted the door open and crawled underneath. Realising eventually that it was not her desire to vacate the premises that was stopping her, it was the fact that she's too fat to do it gracefully and/or quickly. 
• Seeing Divergent on Saturday! 
• I read the first book. I hated it. Therefore, I expected to be ok with the movie, and on the whole, I was. Wasn't great, but wasn't awful. Good costumes, good sets. Extra points for Kate Winslet and her strategically-placed-pregnancy-hiding file folder. Somehow dealt with the fact that the plot makes no sense and every main character suffers from an acute lack of common sense. 
• Also dealt with the hilarious tattoo scene where people who are professedly Dauntless visit what appears to be an upscale Asian Lounge with metallic pouf chairs and are treated to the most pain free, nonsensical, non-Dauntless tattoo application I've ever seen. 
• Explained to Mum that whilst my own tattoo experiences are in no way extreme, a better way of showing a "dauntless spirit" would have been to have had Tris (ps worst. name. ever.) sit down opposite a 6'5'', 300 pound bald man named "Big Steve" whose entire skull is covered with a dragon spitting flames and whose forearms and hands show the bones that lie underneath the skin, get the area in question shaved with a disposable Bic razor, then have the aforementioned Big Steve lean his complete 300 lbs on the area in question, start the gun, say "Ready?" and get to work, all whilst listening to screaming death metal and the ravings of a "friend of the establishment" who comes over halfway through the tattoo eating a chicken wing, leans over to inspect the proceedings, then looks up and shouts over the music (exposing a large quantity of missing teeth) "You know that's gonna look like SH*T in ten years, right?", then get the tattoo wrapped up in bloody Vaseline and Cling Film and take the 6 subway home from Astor Place trying not to touch anyone or anything. 
• I'M JUST SAYING that having the beautiful Maggie Q put a piece of tinfoil on your collarbone and press a button and poof tattoo is not really all that hardcore. 

HOWEVER, DEAR READER. Cookies were made, and they must be shared. 

ANISE COOKIES 

I love Anise. Let's just put that on record. Licorice is one of the things that I am never allowed to buy and/or be trapped in the same room as for long periods of time because I will lose all self control and eat it until I get sick or die, whichever comes first.**

*this list also includes spice drops and marshmallows

*I speak only of BLACK licorice. Red licorice is vile. 

HOWEVER. Baking with Anise provides that nothing-is-more-beautiful licorice smell whilst removing the no-self-control-death-by-licorice danger. So what's not to love?

I actually made these a week earlier, and got Mum approval, before sending them to the LL's. They are one of the million permutations of Beatrice's "Basic Cooky Recipe" (yes that's how she spells Cooky) and only a hop skip and a Finnish housewife jump away from my fav Cardamom Cookies.

ANISE COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/4 cups butter, softened (that's 2 1/2 sticks) 
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 heaping tsp anise seeds or ground anise
• 2 beaten eggs

Combine the flour, sugar, and anise in a small bowl and whisk together.

Blend the butter and the beaten eggs well. It will be a very thick, bright yellow mixture. Pour that into the flour mixture and mix everything together. 

Beatrice has a lot of instructions at this point involving words like "1/8 inch thickness" and "crimped pastry wheel" and "cut the entire surface into diamond shapes." If that's your thing, you go right ahead and more power to you. Personally, in a kitchen approaching glacial temperatures, with a cat headbutting your bum, and with the desire to watch something other than Middle East Business report on television, I would advise forming small cookie balls by hand and flattening them with the bottom of a glass on your baking sheet, sprinkling them with a few anise seeds, and throwing them in the oven. 

But that's just Beetle.  

BEETLE NOTES

This method did not, apparently, have any long-lasting detrimental effects to the cookie (cooky) tastiness overall. I would go so far as to say that it is an acceptable alternative, should you, dear reader, ever find yourselves in similar culinary circumstances.

FINAL BEETLE NOTE

To all those people who hate licorice and/or black licorice I will only say in calm and measured tones that you are completely wrong and imbecilic and I weep for you and also send all your black licorice to me at Beetle HQ and I'll take care of it. 

Or actually don't.

No. No definitely don't. Please don't. 

I'll die. 

Happy Cabbage Day

So, to celebrate St. Patrick's Day on Monday, we did . . . nothing. We don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Yes, I'm half Irish (or at least half Irish/Welsh) it is true, but March 17th and all that goes with it is not really a day that engenders any amount of ethnic pride, nostalgia, or particular celebratory spirit. The reasons are thus:

1. When your family has a, shall we say . . . stormy . . . relationship with alcohol, a day devoted, from what I can tell, to getting as drunk as is humanly possible whether you are Irish or not really just seems stupid, irresponsible, and tasteless.
2. Marty Walsh and Bill de Blasio had it right when they boycotted the Boston and New York parades. I find it difficult to get behind, or even tolerate, organisations that refuse entry to gay people. Or, really, who refuse entry to "a people" of any kind based on religious/ethnic/demographic identity.
3. Putting on a plastic shamrock necklace and a green shirt that says "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" does not make you Irish. What makes you Irish, and anyone who is knows this is the truth, is a love of potatoes, clinically extreme sentimentality, a love of arguing with anything that moves, and a complete inability to forget and/or forgive a slight against you for the rest of time.

OH and this:

The one thing guaranteed to make me happy to be Irish (and also to probably do a stupid dance in my living room screaming lyrics out loud) is Shane MacGowan and The Pogues.

But since you can listen to The Pogues any day of the year (and believe me I do), and taking the above into consideration, we decided a while back that March 17th would be just that. March 17th. And so far, so much better.

HOWEVER.

It is difficult to ignore the onslaught of Irish-themed recipe slideshows, which, even if you are not celebrating, are very fun. And once you flick through the corned beef and green cupcakes (???), you are normally left with a lot of yummy, warm, dinners that feature cabbage.

Specifically, you are left with a Cabbage and Onion Torta from Melissa Clark at The New York Times.

I like cabbage.

MARCH 17TH "HEY LET'S HAVE CABBAGE FOR DINNER" CABBAGE AND ONION PIE

So let's just get the first point out of the way:

Who had a Cabbage Patch doll? I did. Her name was (IS) Emily, and she lives upstairs in the playroom. All of this came full circle on Saturday night when I sliced this baby up. CABBAGE PATCH. I GET IT NOW.

The other fun thing about cooking with cabbage at this time of year is that cabbage was on sale at the market for 39 cents a pound. So. I got a really big one. It cooked up into an absolutely ridiculous amount of cabbage, so I'm freezing half, to be used in something in future. Stay tuned. God bless freezable tupperware, you guys, FOR REAL.

BEETLE NOTES

Obviously a few Beetle substitutions were made (when are there not?). Shockingly, I did not opt for the corned beef version. I did Navy Beans instead for protein and colour-matching which is very important just ask Michel Roux Jr on MasterChef Professionals, used Cheddar instead of Fontina because Fontina = ???, and Wheat Germ instead of bread crumbs to make the taste slightly nuttier and to add the nutritional bonus iron and folic acid. Rah, healthy!

Wheat Germ sauteed with thyme and olive oil

I've been reading through the comments section of the online version of this trying to see if anyone had the same crust issues I had. So far, no. So far, I'm the only one who managed to create a crust that could double as a snowshoe / flotation device / skateboard.

The offending flour mix

For this, I know, I have only myself to blame. Myself and my scraptastical Beetle tendencies. The crust calls for 4 cups of white flour and 1/2 of whole wheat flour. I used 2 cups white and 2 1/2 cups rye flour.

Deceptively pliable dough

This may have been (ok probably almost certainly was) the issue. It came together perfectly, kneaded, chilled, rolled out, baked, no problem. It was only when it came time to BITE INTO IT that the issues made themselves known.

It had, shall we say, gone to 11 on the crispy scale.

[pause for shame-induced hanging of horns]

I think that overdoing the rye flour plus (MASSIVE FAIL) leaving it in the oven for a bit too long were to blame. By which I mean, I AM TO BLAME.

[horns brush the ground in abasement]

That being said, the entire thing was still golden when it came out, not burnt-looking or anything. And I know I didn't make it too thick. I think it does all come back to the flour ratio, and why, once and for all, I need to realise that switching out rye or spelt or whole wheat instead of white flour DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK AND MAKE IT BETTER. And what's the point of making healthy food if you need a crown replacement afterwards. Also what's the point of making food at all if you're going to faff about and leaf it in the oven when you know damn well it should be out by now.

This is me not making it too thick.

I am being slightly hyperbolic, of course. What ended up happening, dining-wise, was the use of the crust as a spoon. Kind of like an enormous pita chip. Or a really extra-super-crunchy-crust pizza. When I do this crust again (the taste, apparently, is spot on, and would be appreciated in other uses in future), I will (sigh) make it with predominantly white flour, and hope that that solves the problem. I will say that the second and third nights were better, as the cabbage and cheese and beans and onions had had time to soften it up from the inside.

Just think of it like one big, healthy, delicious, Trojan Horse. 

I treated this like an enormous pie. Which duh it's a Torta which obviously means pie so WHATEVER. 

The layers were as follows:
Crust
Wheat Germ
Cabbage
Beans
Cheese
Cabbage
Wheat Germ
Crust

Possibly because of my flour-induced problems, the oh-so-pretty slits in top crust that Melissa Clark was able to achieve in her New York Times kitchen did, um, not happen. What happened was that I pretended that the ragged, yawning tears in my top crust were in fact deliberate, artistic, avant garde openings, and hoped that the others I slashed in the same fashion would somehow complete the illusion.






Luckily, one of the deals of motherhood is that you have to love your daughter even when she makes a really ugly, pathetic, been-through-the-mangler-one-too-many-times crust.













You also have to love your daughter when she negotiates (or maybe unwittingly promises her hand in marriage? that might have happened?) with the cell phone store and gets you a Galaxy S4 six months before your upgrade date, plus a cheaper plan, plus programmes the whole thing for you so that, theoretically, you know how to work it

Emphasis on theoretically.

Point to the Cookie that Describes How You Feel

Well. These are fun.

THINGS THAT WERE DISCUSSED DURING ANIME MOVIE DAY NOT NECESSARILY IN THIS ORDER JUST AS I REMEMBER IT BECAUSE IT WAS KIND OF A FREE FLOWING CONVERSATIONAL THREAD AND BY THAT I MEAN UTTERLY, DELICIOUSLY RANDOM

• The hypersexualization of Halloween costumes for girls and women
• Viking Burials and how awesome they are and how much we all (yes, me included) want one when we die
• The importance of having a friend who will not only outlive you but be able to shoot a flaming arrow into a boat from 100 metres away and thereby complete the aforementioned Viking Burial. 
• How awesome it is that I HAVE JUST SUCH A FRIEND. (Hi Jessi!) 
• How annoying Cassie was in The Secret Circle in relation to how awesome Fay was, because yes Fay was "evil" but at least smart and capable of going after what she wanted, whereas Cassie deserved to get kidnapped / beaten up / hexed into oblivion once a week because her stupidity basically brought it upon herself. 
• Glasses and glasses chains and how sartorially essential they are
• Careers in dubbing anime movies and how one might set oneself upon that path
• Alien invasions

Needless to say, Anime Movie day was a success. They came, they ate cookies, they watched back to back anime for hours on end, for the most part speaking the lines out loud, and in one AMAZING moment during a waltz scene, partnered up with with each other with many elaborate bows and danced around the Teen Centre. 

And when we asked them if they had fun? They said LET'S DO IT AGAIN IN TWO WEEKS. 

Like I said. Success. 

They said they wanted cookies, so cookies they got. On offer were the classic Chocolate Chip made by one of the LL's that remain a Teen Centre standby and overwhelming favourite, and to that I added Sugar Cookies upon which, perhaps more for my own amusement than anyone else's, I decided to draw emoticons in various frosting colours. Armed with printouts of symbol-faces that ranged from ecstatic to morose to apoplectic to delirious and everywhere in between, I grabbed my food colouring, my icing tips, my steadiest hands, and went to work. 

When I originally posted some of these photos on FB, I believe I may have used the term "giggle frosted." 

I don't really know any other way to describe what I was doing. 

DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH FUN THIS IS? BECAUSE IT'S A LOT OF FUN. 

I spent a while doing it by myself before Mum came in saying "Are you watching TV? Are you amusing yourself this much? Have you finally gone round the twist?" To which I responded LOOK WHAT I'M DOING THIS IS SO AWESOME. To which she responded "What's that one supposed to be? A cat?" To which I responded GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. 

Actually, going through these photos, I realised that many of them demonstrate the daily emotional swings that come with waiting for approximately 50 schools to come back from spring break, waiting for someone to make a decision one way or another in terms of your future employment, waiting for either the culmination or the spectacular failure of a two year career change, and trying not to imagine the fallout if the latter becomes the case. 

Actually, I'm amazed that therapists don't employ emoticon cookie frosting faces more often. They are a perfect and non-invasive way to sum up how you feel, plus you get to eat a cookie at the end of it. Just saying. Cookie-based-feeling-therapy could TOTALLY be a new thing. 

Come with me, dear reader, on a frosting emo-share journey: 

This is how I feel when I get an email that says "sometime in the next few weeks." 

It is also how my face looks when I put my bite guard in. 

These demonstrate my daily emotional range. Check email. Nope. Check email. Nope. Check email. Nope. 

Reading from bottom to top, this is how my day progresses. 

1. Wake up positive and optimistic and all "today I'm going to be productive and write a million cover letters and won't care if I don't hear anything because I CAN DO THIS." 

2. Why haven't I gotten any emails yet. What is going on. Is my internet connection working? Why is there nothing on television apart from Asia Business Report? 

3. Passed out on the floor, stretching, unable to do anything but work on my splits and watch repeats of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. 

3a. This is normally how Mum finds me when she gets home. With my foot behind my head and feeling smug at at least I know that dairy, protein, and leftovers have to be kept on separate refrigerator shelves. Some people have a safe room. I have the rug between the Pinecone armchair and the Greek and Roman history bookshelf, and an excitable yet well-meaning Englishman yelling at some sleazeball from New Jersey about the cleanliness of his walk in freezer. 

The red smiley is the small glimmer I get every time I receive a "Thanks for your cover letter" email. Because, you know, SOMEONE IS OUT THERE. 

The green weird-o one above that (that sort of worked? it looked better on paper?) is how I look when I get a rejection email. (And yes, dear reader, I've gotten three so far.) Sad that it didn't work out, but also relieved on some level that I can cross it off in my colour-coded / colour-tabbed "Beetle Gets a Job" notebook and reduce the number of possible future life outcomes from 30,000 to 29,999. 

This is how I look when my brain goes into overdrive and I stare straight off into space without moving for several hours. 

The black one on the side is the zenned out look I get when I wake up from the above "blank face" and either go running for a really long time, or go stairmastering for a really long time. 

Things make so much more sense when I can't breathe and my legs want to fall off. And on the upside, if I'm panting that hard, I can't clench my jaw. Bonus. 

BUT DEAR READER. BECAUSE I AM AN OPTIMIST. 

THESE are how I am going to look when this is over, and I have gotten a full time teaching position, and the last two years of my life has been validated. First the blue when I do a Happy Dance (possibly set to the Spice Girls) and the pink when I relax for the first time since February 2011, fall into a bliss coma, and sleep for five days. 

IT'S GONNA HAPPEN. I HAVE FAITH. 

And in the meantime. I have cookies.