the first day of the rest of your life

In the morning, you wake up early. You eat fruit and yogurt and drink a cup of tea while reading your e-mail, keeping an eye on the clock. Shoes on, keys in hand, you do a quick check: knife kit, jacket, apron. You pull the door behind you with a solid bang, and run your hand over the lavender bush by the door, filling the air with its warm scent.

You can walk to work. It's a long road, but straight and wide, and on a sunny morning, it's a good commute. When you arrive at the restaurant, the open kitchen is already bustling, filled with the sizzle and clatter of meals being readied, echoing with cries of "Behind you!" and "Order up!"

You pull on your jacket and apron, roll up your sleeves. Hands are washed, knives set up. You grate potatoes to pack into ramekins, the first stage of hash browns. You cut tomatoes and sweet red onion for bruschetta. You pick over basil and scrub zucchini. There is butter and sugar to cream together, an easy, familiar routine, for cookies filled with raisins and chocolate chunks.

In the lunch rush, you griddle buckwheat pancakes to layer with lemon curd, decorating the plate with powdered sugar and orange zest. You toss greens and tomato dice with red capsicum and cucumber as a base for a warm haloumi salad. You learn to keep an eye on the temperamental toaster, pulling slices of fruit loaf and sourdough before they char. Old habits merge with new lessons. In time, the rhythm of this kitchen will become second nature.

The hours vanish. Soon the dining room is quiet, just one or two guests relaxing with an afternoon espresso and the paper. You sit down to staff meal, eating pasta in red sauce with feta and rocket and olives, suddenly aware of the ache in your feet. After you've eaten, you begin closing down the kitchen, restocking ingredients and returning parchment and plastic to their places on the shelf. Sinks are scrubbed, floors are swept. The fryer is emptied of oil in a steady, reassuring gurgle.

This is the first day of the rest of your life. No more computer. No more office, no more suit. No more crying at your desk and fabricating allergies to explain away your red eyes. You've finally exchanged your mouse for a chef's knife, and now you can wear jeans to work.

Your new employer stands at the cake case, clearing desserts that are no longer in their prime. When he reaches the cake stand holding croissants, he asks if you'd like to take the old ones home. He wraps them neatly in greaseproof paper and tucks them into a paper bag that goes in your backpack, nestled on top of your apron and jacket. A gift, a welcome. A homecoming.

Croissants

A croissant is pretty much a yeasted puff pastry. Baking your own is not as complicated as many cookbooks make it out to be, but it is a multi-step process with long stretches of waiting time, so patience is essential. Begin the recipe three days before you plan to eat them.

Note: I've given measurements in metric and imperial, but I recommend the metric.

(Inspired by this recipe. Makes a half-dozen regular-sized croissants, or a dozen mini-croissants. Recipe not for one unless you're trying to make stale croissants for bread pudding, or you really do want to eat half a dozen croissants in a single sitting.)

First, the dough: In a bowl, combine two hundred and fifty grams of flour, three tablespoons of sugar, one-and-three-quarters of a teaspoon of yeast, and three quarters of teaspoon of salt. Rub in one tablespoon of butter. Stir in one hundred and seventy mililitres (half a cup, plus two tablespoons) of cold milk. Stick a hand in the bowl, and stir until the mixture comes together. Knead until a smooth dough forms. Pop it on a plate, cover with plastic, and chill in the fridge overnight.

The next day, begin by prepping the butter: Lay out a sheet of parchment paper, and sprinkle it lightly with flour. Take one hundred and fifty grams (five ounces) of chilled butter and cut it into slices. Arrange them in a square on the floured parchment. Sprinkle with flour, and top with another sheet of parchment. Using a rolling pin, thump and/or squish the butter until the pieces join together. You'll have a rough square; trim it to five-by-five inches (it will be about a quarter-inch thick), and place the trimmings on top. Use the rolling pin to press them in. The butter square should be on the pliable side; if it's very stiff, give it another thumping with the rolling pin.

Wrap the butter in the parchment paper, and place it back in the fridge.

Pull your dough from the fridge. Shape it into a rough square, and roll it, from the center out, so that it's large enough to fit the butter square diagonally (the corners of the butter square should touch the mid-points of the dough square.)

Fold the dough over the butter, and pinch the edges to seal.

Grab your rolling pin. Placing gentle pressure on the dough, roll until you have a rectangle that measures roughly seven by twelve inches.

7 x 12inch - 3x turns.

Gently fold the dough into thirds, like a letter. Wrap in plastic and chill for twenty minutes in the freezer.

When the twenty minutes are up, pull out the dough and place it so that the long side is perpendicular to your counter. Roll it out again into a rectangle that measures roughly seven by twelve inches, and fold it into thirds again. (Every fold is called a turn.) Rewrap the dough and return it to the freezer for another twenty minutes.

Roll and fold the dough one more time, so that you've given it three turns in total. Wrap well in plastic, and place in the fridge to chill overnight.

The next day, pull the dough from the fridge and place it on the countertop. Working slowly, roll it out so that it's eight inches wide by about thirty inches long (or for mini-croissants, about five inches wide by about forty-two inches long.) The dough will become resistant as you roll; pull it up from the counter gently to let it shrink back fully. When you reach the desired length, take a ruler or measuring tape and trim the excess dough so that you have a neat, long rectangle.

Mark the dough at five-inch intervals along one of the long sides (three-and-a-half inch for mini-croissants.) On the other long side, mark one interval at two-and-a-half inches (one-and-a-quarter inches) and then mark the rest at five (three-and-a-half.) With a small sharp knife, using these intervals as starting points, cut the dough into triangles.

Use your knife to cut a small notch, about half an inch long, in the wide end of each triangle. (This helps the croissants hold their shape once they're rolled.)

Take one of the triangles between two hands, and pulling very gently, stretch until it becomes about ten inches long (six and a half for mini-croissants.) Try not to compress the dough.

Place the triangle on the counter with the point facing upwards. Starting from the wide end, roll the dough away from you. Be firm, but gentle. You want enough pressure to get the dough to stay, but not so much that the layers become squished.

Roll until the very point of the dough is tucked under the body of the croissant. Turn it around, so that the point faces towards you.

Take hold of each end gently, and bend them inwards to form a crescent shape.

Shape the remaining dough in the same fashion, and arrange the shaped croissants on two parchment-lined baking sheets. The croissants will expand as they proof, so leave plenty of room in between.

Make up an egg wash by beating together one egg with a teaspoon of cold water until very smooth. Brush the croissants with egg wash (hang on to it, you'll need it again later) and place them in a warmish, draft-free place to proof. (Someplace not too chilly, but not so warm that the butter in the croissants melts out.) Leave them, and go do something else for about two hours.

The croissants are fully proofed when you can see the layers of dough if you look at the croissants from the side. Also, if you shake the tray, the croissants will jiggle.

They're almost ready for the oven! Get the oven preheated to 425F. Brush the croissants with egg wash again. Slide the trays into the oven. Bake for ten minutes, then rotate and swap the trays. Bake for another eight to ten minutes, or until the croissants are a deep, rich brown all over. (If they're browning very quickly, lower the temperature by ten degrees or so.) When the croissants are fully baked, pull them from the oven. Transfer to cooling racks.

Allow the croissants to cool until just warm. Serve with jam or Nutella.

not just for the birds

Of all the many exciting things about relocating to Melbourne, one of the most exciting might be having a garden again.

It's a small backyard - more of a courtyard, really - but there's a little square of garden, just enough for herbs and a few plants. I've planted basil and mint, and we'll see if my minimal experience with gardening is enough to keep them alive.

There's also an apricot tree. Technically, it's the neighbors' tree, but several boughs protrude over the fence, and as far as I can see, only the birds have shown any interest in the fruit on their side.

Unfortunately for the birds on this side of the fence, I've been up early since the apricots began to ripen, and I've collected what fruit I can every morning. Even at a rate of just four or five apricots a day, the fruit bowl has been getting full, and there's only so much of a dent I can put in the pile by adding apricots to my morning yogurt. I decided it was time to do some baking.

Apricots are stone fruit, of the same family as peaches and plums, and like peaches and plums, are well-suited to desserts such as crumble and tart. I didn't have quite enough apricots for a crumble, however, and I baked a tart the last time I encountered fresh apricots, so I turned my thoughts to cake instead.

As I was considering flavorings, the sage bush in the garden caught my eye, and I decided that a pound cake flavored with brown butter and sage might make for an interesting contrast to the tart-sweet quality of the apricots. I hit a slight snag after gathering all my ingredients, however - I was a little short on butter, and reluctant to make a trip to the grocery store.

Instead, I decided to bake muffins rather than pound cake, using a mixture of butter and olive oil and adding a generous amount of finely chopped fruit. The apricots turned soft and jammy and kept the muffins nicely moist, and the sage aroma came through well, just as I'd hoped.

I sat outside for afternoon tea. It only seemed fair to leave any stray crumbs for the birds.

Apricot Sage Brown Butter Muffins

These muffins are modified from classic pound cake proportions, so they're still quite sweet and rich, and best baked as small muffins, rather than large ones.

(Makes one dozen small muffins, which may be frozen.)

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt seventy grams of unsalted butter (about two ounces) and add eight to ten large sage leaves. Cook, stirring occasionally, until butter foams and turns golden in color, and the sage leaves darken and crisp up. Remove from heat, and transfer to a mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, break up the sage leaves into small pieces. Set aside to cool.

Take five or six small ripe apricots (about a hundred and fifty to two hundred grams; five to seven ounces) and cut an X in the bottom of each. Place in a colander and pour boiling water over, then rinse under cold water. Using a paring knife, peel away the skin of each apricot. Cut each apricot in half and discard the pits. Cut the apricots into small dice and transfer to a small bowl. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 165C (325F.) Grease and flour a quarter-cup muffin tin.

Take the mixing bowl with the sage brown butter, and add thirty mililiters of olive oil (two tablespoons), followed by a hundred and ten grams (half a cup) of white sugar. Add a quarter-teaspoon of salt, and an eighth of a teaspoon (just a few drops) of vanilla extract. Stir well.

Crack in one egg, and using a fork or a whisk, beat the mixture until the egg is well-incorporated. Crack in a second egg, and beat the mixture again. It will be quite thick and smooth.

Fold in one hundred and forty grams (one cup) of self-raising flour, little by little, until you have a smooth batter.

Spoon a little batter into the bottom of each muffin cup, add a sprinkling of apricot dice, then spoon over more batter. The muffin cups should not be completely full - you'll have a little space at the top. Once the muffin cups have all been filled, sprinkle them with the remaining apricot dice. Transfer the muffin tin to the oven.

Bake for forty to forty-five minutes, or until muffins are golden and a skewer or fork stuck into the center comes out cleanly. Allow the muffins to cool in the tin for ten minutes, then turn out on a rack.

Serve warm for afternoon tea or breakfast.

the obligatory new year's eve cocktail post, sans cocktail

I had the idea that my taste in alcohol would mature after college.

I thought it would be part and parcel of that mysterious metamorphosis from which I'd emerge a full-fledged Grown-Up. At some point in my twenties, my dress sense would evolve, I'd lose my taste for hot wings, and somewhere along the way, I'd also acquire a taste for gin-and-tonics and develop the ability to drink wine and have something intelligent to say about it.

So far, I've decided that hot wings lose a lot of their appeal when there are no late nights in dorm common rooms involved, but my taste in clothing is stuck at dark jeans and t-shirts with funny slogans, I find that gin still tastes medicinal, and the only comment I can make about wine is what it smells like when I stick my nose in the glass. I still drink dry whites, fruity reds, dark beers, Frangelico-spiked coffee, and not much else. I might learn to mix a proper martini at some point (it seems like a useful skill), but it's doubtful that I'd actually drink the finished result.

Suffice to say, no-one would put me in charge of drinks at a New Year's Eve gathering. (Well, not unless they planned to serve nothing but large quantities of bone-dry prosecco.) That's fine with me, because I'm perfectly happy to handle canapes and cocktail nibbles instead.

I think of canapes and cocktail nibbles as two distinct categories of appetizers. Canapes, in sufficient quantities, will make a meal. Cocktail nibbles, however, are closer to bar snacks - something to graze on before the mini quiches and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spears make their appearance - and therefore shouldn't be too elaborate, or too numerous. Toasted nuts, mixed olives, maybe a few thin curls of salty ham. Items that can be found at a good deli or import store, and don't require any cooking.

Of course, there's always an exception to the rule. Cheese twists (or cheese straws) are long spirals of cheese-flavored pastry, pleasant to nibble on with a glass in hand, and quite festive as part of a cocktail spread. While you can find some perfectly serviceable varieties at a good import store, they're even better when baked from scratch.

The recipe below is essentially a basic pastry recipe, modified to incorporate cheese, and given the "rough puff" treatment to produce flaky, crispy twists. Classic flavorings for cheese twists include paprika and rosemary, but I've chosen to flavor mine with toasted cumin seeds and black pepper. They're quite moreish, and they have the added bonus of making my underdeveloped taste in alcohol irrelevant. Never mind the martinis - I find that they pair best with bone-dry prosecco anyway.

Parmesan Cheddar Cheese Twists with Toasted Cumin and Black Pepper

For rosemary and black pepper twists, replace the cumin with one teaspoon of finely chopped fresh rosemary.

(Makes about three dozen six-inch twists. Will keep in an airtight container for up to a week, but they're best consumed fresh.)

In a dry pan over low heat, toast one tablespoon of whole cumin seeds until aromatic, about five minutes or so. Transfer the cumin to a small bowl, and set aside to cool.

In a mixing bowl, combine two hundred grams of plain flour (about a cup and a half) with a quarter-teaspoon of salt. Cut in a hundred grams of chilled butter (about seven tablespoons) and rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in fifty grams of finely grated - preferably Microplaned - parmesan (one point eight ounces, about a cup), a sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper, and the toasted cumin seeds.

Add four tablespoons of ice water, and turn the mixture gently until it just starts to hold together. Add sixty grams (two ounces) of finely chopped sharp cheddar and work it into the dough.

Turn the dough out on a clean countertop. Flatten it out roughly with the palm of your hand, and fold it over into thirds, like a letter. Flatten it out again lengthways, and fold it over into thirds again. Flatten and fold one more time, to make three times in all. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill in the fridge until firm.

When the dough has been fully chilled, pull it from the fridge and cut it in half. Wrap up one half and stick it back in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 180F. Line two baking trays with parchment paper.

Take the dough half and roll it out between sheets of greaseproof paper until it's three milimetres (about an eighth of an inch) thick. Trim the dough so that it's fifteen centimetres (about six inches) long (keep the scraps) and then cut it into centimetre-wide strips.

Take a strip of dough and set it on the countertop. Take the ends between your fingers, and turn them in opposite directions so that the dough twists upon itself. (Give the strip plenty of turns, because the dough will untwist a little after it's been placed on the baking tray.) Lay the twist on a baking tray, and repeat the process with the remaining strips. Transfer the twists to the oven.

Bake the twists for twenty-five to twenty-eight minutes, switching the trays halfway, until twists are golden brown. As they bake, roll and cut the remaining dough. (Any scraps can be re-rolled, too.)

Transfer the finished twists to a cooling rack, and finish shaping and baking the remaining dough.

When all the twists are cool, transfer them to an airtight container. To serve, arrange in wide-mouthed jars or glasses. If you like, they may be warmed slightly before serving.

Note: I suspect the twists may be shaped, frozen, and later baked from frozen, but I have yet to test the theory, so don't take my word for it.

the hostess gift

Of all the voices I joke about hearing in my head, there's one I sometimes forget. It's a quiet little voice, easily overlooked, and it gets lost when all the other voices - the ones that talk about food and cooking - start clamoring for attention.

That little voice only pipes up when I'm invited to dinner, or lunch, or tea, or any other sort of social occasion at someone's home. And then I wonder how I ever could forget about its existence. You see, the voice sounds suspiciously like that of my mother, and it likes to announce, in the sternest tones possible, that should I forget a hostess gift, I do so on pain of death and dishonor.

My parents were not etiquette mavens. I cannot remember receiving any instruction in, say, table manners. (I suspect I may have been taught by my grandparents, with a little polish added by my stint at a private, all-girls school in Sydney, which was occasionally old-fashioned to the point of anachronism.) Like all Asian children, however, I was instructed in the various complex and arcane forms of address for courtesy aunts and uncles. I was on strict orders to answer questions about school and study without any of my customary snark. And I learned that it was unthinkable to show up at someone's house for a social occasion empty-handed.

Flowers, I learned, were an acceptable hostess gift, and the easiest if one was pressed for time and happened to be close to a supermarket with a florist's stand. Occasionally, if my parents knew the hosts very well, and were certain of their drinking habits, we would make a detour en route at a liquor store for a bottle of wine. Their preferred gift, however, was food, and preferably fruit. Netted bags of mandarins. Thick-skinned clusters of grapes. Golden pears, the bigger the better. During Chinese New Year, every home we visited looked like its inhabitants were thinking about making a foray into the greengrocer's business.

When I received an invitation to Christmas lunch with people I'd only just met here in Melbourne, the little voice didn't falter. My taste in hostess gifts runs to baked goods, however, and so I decided Christmas cookies were in order. Give my fondness for traditional Christmas sweets in the European tradition - panettone, stollen, springerle, even old-fashioned, brandied fruitcake - spices and dried fruit were an obvious starting point.

I began with a simple shortbread base, and seasoned it with vanilla, brandy, orange zest and various spices before adding dried currants and crystallized ginger. I let the dough chill before rolling and cutting simple rounds. Baked at low heat, the resulting cookies were richly fragrant, with a delicate, sandy crumb. Packaged in cellophane and tied with bright ribbon, I think they make quite a pretty hostess gift.

Even the little voice in my head is in grudging agreement.


Christmas Spice Cookies

I've baked these as a rolled cookie, but the dough can also be shaped into a log before chilling, and then sliced and baked. These taste best a day or two after baking, when the flavors have had time to develop.

(Makes somewhere between one-and-a-half and two dozen. Dough will freeze. Cookies will keep in an airtight container for a week or so.)

In a mixing bowl, cream together one hundred and twenty-five grams of softened butter (about four ounces) and fifty-five grams of sugar (about a quarter-cup.) Stir in a quarter-teaspoon of salt, followed by a quarter-teaspoon of cinnamon, a quarter-teaspoon of allspice, an eighth-teaspoon of allspice, and an eighth-teaspoon of cloves.

Add the zest from one small orange, a half-teaspoon of vanilla, and a half-teaspoon of brandy. Stir again to combine. Beat in one egg yolk.

Stir in one hundred and forty grams (one cup) of plain white flour, little by little, until you have a nice sandy dough. Mix in fifty grams of finely chopped crystallized ginger (one-third of a cup) and fifty grams of dried currants (one-third of a cup.)

Wrap the dough in plastic and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 160C (325F.) Line two baking trays with parchment paper.

Roll the dough out between two sheets of parchment or wax paper (flour lightly to keep it easy to work with) to a quarter-inch thickness. Cut out two-inch rounds and place them on the baking trays. These cookies won't spread, so you can keep them quite close together.

Place the trays in the oven, and bake (switch the trays halfway through) for seventeen to twenty minutes, or until cookies are just barely colored. Transfer to cooling racks. When fully cool, place in decorative bags or cookie tins.

Serve with tea or coffee.

the breakfast battle

I am not a morning person.

Scratch that. I am Not A Morning Person. I do not react favorably to the sight of early morning sunshine. I build defensive trenches of comforters against the creeping threat of seven am. I sleep soundly and cannot be woken by anything other than an alarm clock, because only an alarm clock is implacable against my threats and invective. I do not merely abuse the snooze button - I am guilty of capital crimes against it.

If I had my way, I'd only ever sneak up on mornings from behind, catching them in passing after staying up all night.

Mornings are difficult. Breakfast, more so. My stomach doesn't wake up until at least half an hour after my eyes are open, and while I like many breakfast foods, I have no love for breakfast hour. Pancakes are delicious at four am and eleven am. At eight am, they are an abomination.

I didn't grow into my aversion to mornings. Even as a child, it took a lot to rouse me out of bed before nine. If there was ever an argument for giving children caffeine, I was a walking point in its favor. My mother, who took to heart the idea of breakfast as the most important meal of the day, would sigh and fret as I sat sullen and bleary-eyed at the kitchen table, refusing fruit and yogurt and Weet-Bix before finally choking down a few half-hearted bites of margarine toast, pointedly avoiding the crusts. When my sister reached an impressionable age and began imitating me in everything I did, my mother - my sugar-phobic mother - broke down and bought Pop-Tarts.

If the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation had created a snack machine to go with their Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser, a Pop-Tart is the sort of thing it would produce. Rectangular, about the size of a small envelope, consisting of a sickly, jammy confection sandwiched between sheets of damp, crumbly pastry product, the Pop-Tart is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a jam tartlet. Their tooth-aching sweetness was enough to give even me and my sister (hardened sugar junkies, the both of us) serious pause. Still, the joy of the forbidden was enough to get us eating them, and for a few weeks, the breakfast battle reached a ceasefire. Then the novelty wore off, and Pop-Tarts didn't last on their merits. We went back to margarine toast.

Later, I left for boarding school and discovered the magic of coffee. Mornings, while still not agreeable, became at least bearable, and I found that granola bars were a fairly effective mid-morning compromise. The last time I encountered Pop-Tarts - in the vending machine at law school - I noted with a certain bafflement that they'd introduced a double-frosted chocolate variety, complete with sprinkles. I had neither the nostalgia nor the morbid curiosity to try them.

Suffice to say, Pop-Tarts were the last thing on my mind when I was tinkering with a recipe for maple cookies. The results failed on their merits as cookies - the amount of maple syrup required to give the cookies a strong maple flavor also gave them an odd texture - but showed promise as pastry. Replacing the sugar and water in a standard sweet shortcrust with maple syrup and egg yolk, trading out regular butter for browned, and giving it a few quick turns produced a pastry that was flaky and fragrant. All I needed was the right recipe in which to use it.

A tart or pie didn't seem quite right. Then I learned through the blogosphere that people make homemade versions of Pop-Tarts, little pastries that keep the Pop-Tart's rectangular shape, but more like turnovers or hand pies in character. The pastry-to-filling ratio struck me as a good one, and it was easy to cook up a sweetly spiced mixture of apples and raisins to sandwich between sheets of pastry. A wash of egg and a spell in the oven, and the results were browned and delectable, perfect for eating at the kitchen table in one's pajamas.

Well, maybe not at breakfast hour. Could we skip that battle - and make it a late brunch?

Apple-Raisin "Pop-Tarts" with Flaky Maple Brown Butter Pastry

If you're not inclined to fuss with measuring and cutting rectangles, this recipe can also be used for turnovers: stamp out rounds of pastry with a large cookie-cutter, top with filling, and fold over into half-moons. Feel free to play with the filling, too - apple-cranberry and apple-cherry are possible variations, and I imagine these might be tasty with rhubarb compote or pumpkin butter too.

(Makes six, with leftover filling, which can be eaten with pancakes or toast.)

Start by cutting eight ounces of butter into small chunks and placing them in a light-colored pan over low heat. Cook until the butter melts and you can see the milk solids at the bottom (they'll be a whitish sediment); keep cooking until they turn a toasty, caramelly brown. Pour off the melted butter into a heatproof container; scrape the pan to get all the solids. Allow to cool, then refrigerate until solid. (You'll have roughly six ounces of brown butter.)

In a big mixing bowl, combine eight ounces of flour and three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt. Cut in the chilled brown butter, and rub it in with your fingertips until the largest bits are pea-sized. Add six tablespoons of maple syrup and half a beaten egg (set aside the other half) and stir until the mixture just starts to clump.

Turn the mixture - it will be a crumbly mess - out on a sheet of wax paper. Top with another sheet of wax paper and roll it out until it's about half an inch thick. Peel off the wax paper, and fold the dough - it will still be a crumbly mess - into thirds. Turn the pastry so that the folded seam is perpendicular, cover with wax paper and roll it out again. (It should be a little less crumbly by this point.) Fold it into thirds. Turn and repeat the folds again. (It should look like dough now.)

Fold the wax paper back over the pastry and wrap the whole package in plastic. Stick it in the fridge to chill.

Meanwhile, peel and core two tart apples (Granny Smiths or Macouns are good) and cut them into small dice. Place in a small saucepan with a quarter-cup of raisins, six tablespoons of sugar, two tablespoons of water, a big pinch of cinnamon and a big pinch of nutmeg. (Optional extra: a teaspoon of brandy.) Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the apples have softened and the mixture is sticky. Remove from heat; set aside to cool.

Pull the dough from the fridge. Roll it out to an eighth of an inch, and cut the pastry into a dozen rectangles of three by four inches. Using a fork, prick half the rectangles lightly (make sure the fork doesn't go all the way through.) Take the remaining beaten egg from the pastry, and add a little water to thin it.

Set out a parchment-covered baking tray. Arrange six of the rectangles on the baking tray. Use a fork to prick the pastry lightly (make sure they don't go all the way through.) Spoon apple-raisin filling onto the rectangles, leaving space at the edges. Dip a finger in the egg mixture and use it to moisten the edges, then top with another pastry rectangle. Press the edges with the tines of a fork to seal. Repeat the process with all the remaining rectangles.

Brush the tops of each pastry with egg wash, then prick all over with a fork, making sure you do pierce all the way through. If you like, the pastries can be sprinkled lightly with fleur de sel or cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 350F until nicely browned, about fifteen minutes. Turn out on a rack to cool a little - you don't want to burn your tongue on the filling. Serve warm.

Note: I haven't tried baking these from frozen, but I see no reason why it couldn't work.

the secret world

“Do all the Disciplines have their own clubhouses?”

“It’s not a clubhouse,” Eliot said sharply. He dumped a huge clump of fresh pasta into a tall pot of boiling water and stirred it to break it up. “This’ll cook in about a minute flat.”

“Then what is it?”

“Well, all right, it is a clubhouse. But don’t call it that. We call it the Cottage. We have the seminars here, and the library isn’t bad.” He tasted the sauce, then glugged in a slug of heavy cream and stirred it in widening circles. The sauce paled and thickened. Eliot had a jaunty, offhanded confidence at the stove.

“I hope you don’t mind pasta,” he added, to Quentin. “It’s all I made. There’s bruschetta out there, or there was. At least there’s lots of wine.” He drained the pasta in the sink, sending up a huge gout of steam, and dumped it into the pan to finish in the sauce.

“God, I love cooking. I think if I weren’t a magician, I’d be a chef. It’s just such a relief after all that invisible, intangible bullshit, don’t you think?”

Quentin Coldwater is seventeen, an overachieving, Type-A student with an unusual aptitude for advanced math, a hopeless crush on his best friend Julia, and a long-standing interest in magic tricks. On the day of his interview for entrance to Princeton, his life quite literally takes an odd turn. In pursuit of a letter blown away by an errant gust of wind, he runs into a back garden and suddenly finds himself in a place where it is not winter, but summer - and he is invited to sit a very strange entrance exam for a genuine magical college.

My selection for the Fall 2011 edition of Novel Food, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians is a story about college and growing up that shows how even being able to do magic does not make coming of age any less awkward. Despite Quentin's initial excitement, he discovers that life at Brakebills School of Magical Pedagogy still has much in common with life in the ordinary world, and just because he's in a new place doesn't mean that he's become a new person. It's a sharp, clever urban fantasy tale, and Grossman writes with an eye for detail that produces unexpectedly delightful food scenes.

Quentin, after sitting a written entrance exam that includes exercises in making up a foreign language and drawing a rabbit that doesn't stay put on the page, receives a lunch tray from a "silent, comically correct butler in white gloves." It consists of "a sandwich – roasted red peppers and very fresh mozzarella on sourdough bread – a lumpy pear, and a thick square of dark, bitter chocolate" plus "a glass of something cloudy and fizzy" poured from an unlabelled bottle. (Nothing strange - it turns out to be grapefruit soda.)

During his semester at Brakebills South - an unlikely campus in an even unlikelier location - he is served "a cup of hot tea, a tumbler of water, a plate with a pat of yeasty European butter and a thick slab of sourdough bread on it, and a glass containing what would turn out to be two fingers of peppery vodka" as lunch after hours and hours of casting a spell to drive nails straight into wood. He then spends his afternoon with another spell - one for removing nails from wood.

Later, after graduation, Quentin and his friends throw a ridiculous, tipsy dinner party in Manhattan whose menu includes Lillet cocktails (Lillet, vodka, and champagne), miniature sweet-and-sour lobster rolls, pork chops dusted with bitter chocolate, and individual baked Alaskas. They overdo the carefully planned wine pairings, and don't make it to the cheese course.

The scene I like best, however, begins on the very first day of Quentin's Third Year. The students have been placed into their Disciplines - the magical equivalent of majors - and Quentin and his friend Alice are the would-be new members of the Physical Magic group. Their first challenge, however, is getting through the front door of the small Victorian bungalow where the seminars are held. Several hours after they arrive at the building, they finally succeed by burning the door in half. Once inside, Quentin and Alice make the acquaintance of the Janet, Josh, and Eliot - "Physical Kids" - and drink quite a lot of red wine as they wait for Eliot to finish making dinner.

They were in a shabby but comfortable library lined with threadbare rugs and lit by candles and firelight. Quentin realized that the little house must be larger on the inside than it was on the outside; it was also a lot cooler – the atmosphere was that of a nice, chilly fall evening. Books overflowed the bookcases and stood in wobbly stacks in the corners and even on the mantelpiece. The furniture was distinguished but mismatched, and in places it was severely battered.

When the pasta is ready, they sit down to eat:

With a white tablecloth and two heavy silver candelabras and a wildly eclectic assortment of silverware, some of which bordered on light hand-to-hand weaponry, the table in the library almost looked like somewhere you could eat. The food was simple but not at all bad.

Quentin let the chatter wash over him. Eating a sophisticated meal, alone in their own private dining room, felt very adult. This was it, he thought. He had been an outsider before, but now he had really entered into the inner life of the school. This was the real Brakebills. He was in the warm secret heart of the secret world.

Quentin's first dinner in the Cottage makes me think of the meals we had in the vegetarian co-op I lived in during senior year of college. Though it was a bigger (and somewhat rowdier) crowd, the house had a similar shabby charm. We had a shelf of battered cookbooks in the common room, and it wasn't unusual to wander into the kitchen and discover all the countertops covered in flour or laid out with phyllo because someone had decided to make bisteeya or puff pastry on a whim. Dinner took place at a long dining table in a room with creaky floorboards and odd angles, and in winter we'd hang out in the common room, curled up on the ancient couches or lying on the floor by the fireplace.

I decided I wanted a dish that reminded me of cooking by trial and error without being too fussed about the results, of wandering into the kitchen late on a Saturday afternoon and watching a meal evolve, unplanned and unrehearsed, as more people trickled in with thoughts of food on their minds. I wanted the kind of casual meal I might prepare with a group of people who didn't mind spending the afternoon in the kitchen.

The ravioli dish below uses a little trick I figured out just this year. As much as I love using ravioli stamps to turn out neat little squares and rounds that are perfect to freeze, I'll be the first to admit that it's a time-consuming process and not quite the sort of thing for a casual group dinner. You can speed up the process, however, if you're not too fussed about the presentation: instead of making perfectly regular ravioli with stamps, cut rolled-out sheets of pasta dough into wide strips using kitchen shears, fill them, fold them and use the shears again to trim them. A quick dip in boiling water, a slick of butter and garlic, and all that's left is to set the table and open the wine.

Not quite magic, but I think the Physical Kids would approve.

Swiss Chard Ravioli - The Quick(ish) Version

The filling is just Swiss chard pureed with a little ricotta and garlic, but ground walnuts or finely chopped mushrooms are also a nice addition.

(Makes three or four servings. Ravioli may be frozen, but it's not really the point of this exercise.)

Start with the pasta dough: Dump two cups of all-purpose flour on a clean countertop. Make a well in the middle. Crack in two eggs. Pour in a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of water. Use your fingers to break up the eggs and swirl them around to pull the flour in, little by little. (More detailed instructions can be found here.)

Once you have a rather shaggy mass of dough, start kneading. Wet your hands if it seems very dry; continue kneading. Knead until you have a stiff dough that is very smooth to the touch. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for at least an hour.

For the filling, begin with a pound of washed and trimmed Swiss chard. Put the leaves in a large pot or heatproof bowl, and cover with boiling water. Let it sit for a few minutes, until the leaves wilt. Transfer to a colander. When it has cooled enough to handle, pick it up in handfuls and squeeze out all the excess liquid.

Chop the chard roughly, paying attention to the stems. Gather it in handfuls once again and squeeze out any remaining liquid.

Heat a little olive oil in a large pan, add three cloves of finely chopped garlic. Add the chard, and saute until soft. Allow to cool.

Transfer the cooked chard to a food processor. Add a generous scoop of whole milk ricotta and a handful of walnuts, if you're using them. Add a fat pinch of salt and a dusting of freshly cracked black pepper, and puree until smooth. The mixture should be predominantly green in color, and taste more of chard than ricotta.

To assemble the ravioli, pull the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. Set up your pasta maker, and roll out a sheet of dough to the second-thinnest setting. (Probably about 5 or 6 on the dial, depending on your model.)

Using kitchen shears, cut the dough into wide strips crosswise. Pick up a strip of dough, place a spoonful of filling on it, and fold it over. Pinch to seal. Trim the edges of excess dough. Place the finished ravioli on flour-dusted trays. (If you're cooking with friends, this process works quite well assembly-line style.)

To cook the ravioli, put a big pot of salted water on to boil, and drop in the ravioli a dozen at a time. When they float to the surface, they're cooked through. Lift them out with a slotted spoon.

Sauce them with butter and more garlic. A bit of bacon wouldn't go astray, either.

(Alas, I experienced critical camera failure, so I'm lacking a photo of the finished dish.)

rampion, or the witch before the law of unintended consequences

He's at it again.

He’s a clumsy oaf, and indiscriminate, too. If it's green and broad-leafed, he wrenches it from its stems, rips the roots right out of the earth. I don’t know that he sees that purslane’s teardrop leaves are not like the rosettes of lamb’s lettuce, that the pale blush shading the stems of spinach is distinct from the bold scarlet of chard. Lucky for him that rhubarb's not in season. Luckier still for his pretty wife.

She's no plump-cheeked, wide-hipped milkmaid, but slight and fine-boned as a bird. Hair like winter butter, skin like twice-skimmed milk. A swollen belly like a sickness, draining the very marrow from her bones. Her blood must be thin and tired. No wonder she begs him to seek out greens.

I’ve seen him with her at the market, the stall piled high with wares. Pots of thick clotted cream, butter both sweet and salt in stone crocks, cheese in great golden wheels ripened beneath a rind of beeswax. He has a word for each passer-by, but she doesn’t speak. He looks as her desperately, as though he were afraid to look away. As though she might vanish from his sight if his back were turned.

Market day comes once every week in the village square, at the place where the road ends. This was once the last settlement before a hostile border, before the mapmakers brought out fresh parchment and ink, and allies and enemies changed places with the stroke of a quill. There was once a garrison here, and it left an empty watchtower after the soldiers departed. A lasting legacy: an edifice fashioned from great hewn blocks of unyielding stone, a stark column against the horizon.

The road runs all the way to the far west in a long meandering line. There is one village where it passes by a river. There was plague in that village some seasons ago.

It came swiftly and suddenly, like a change in the wind. It carried away the butcher and the baker and the blacksmith and all his brood. The gravediggers worked their shovels until their hands left bloody marks upon all that they touched. After the priest expired, there were no more funeral rites. After the midwife succumbed, there were no longer enough living to bury the dead.

The midwife’s apprentice did what she could. She spooned broth and tea into parched mouths and laid cool poultices on feverish brows. She held trembling hands and listened as cracked lips whispered empty prayers. They perished all the same.

At the end, the village was silent save for the buzzing of the flies. The midwife’s apprentice walked to the riverbank and peered into the water. Her face was no longer that of a child’s. There were new hollows in her cheeks, and her dark hair was shot through with silver.

She stepped onto the road and began walking. She stopped only when the road came to an end.

The old watchtower stood abandoned. Too small for a family, too isolated in winter, too silent save for the howling wind. Nothing but the woods and meadows for company. When I came to the village, I claimed it for my own. The village did not want me, for I could neither bake bread nor sew a seam, and the tavern had no need of another pair of hands. Instead I foraged in the woods, and sold what I could at the market.

He thinks he's being stealthy, the fool, crossing from his back meadows to my garden. As though I would blame wild animals for the crushed lace of the wild carrot flowers and the fragrance of bruised mint. Deer eat all plants, wolves eat none, and only a man embosses the soft earth with the stark prints of hobnailed boots.

When I made my home in the tower, the villagers were wary, but their children weren’t afraid. They came to the watchtower for a glimpse of the stranger. All ragged urchins, the ones too young to work in the fields and too poor for schooling. They came to me, and I taught them to find beechnuts in the woods and trout in the brook. Their families ate the better for it. The children laughed and told me their secrets. Some even called me Mother Gothel.

I did not fear all All Hallows Eve. Only winter frightened me. Still, I had done a steady trade in herbs and nuts, and careful thrift had brought me a goat and a speckled hen. When the children came to me, breathless with stories of bonfires and mulled cider and ghost stories, I felt a thrill too.

There were apples in the woods, and nuts for the taking, and I thought to make caramel apples as a treat for the children. A traveler at the market had paid me a small sack of sugar for a rare basket of penny buns and hen-of-the-woods. All I needed was a little butter.

Butter, though, was more luxury than my purse afforded, and I ate my daily bread and wild onions dry. I had never paid a visit to the dairy before the day I crossed the meadow to the farmhouse.

An iron horseshoe hung above the lintel, and sage grew by the door. Old superstitions. I waited a long while after I knocked. When the dairy farmer’s wife finally opened the door, she did not ask me in, but stood on the threshold. Her hair was unbound and spilled in a long fine fall almost to her knees. Her hands and arms were smooth and soft, as though she had never clutched the heavy dash of a churn or hoisted the wide wooden frame of a cheese hoop. She held a young babe – a son – in the crook of her arm, and she looked at him desperately, though she were afraid to look away. As though he might vanish from her sight if her back were ever turned. Seeing her closely, she was not that much older than I.

I told her I had come for a lump of sweet butter. I had no silver, but I had made a goat's cheese for barter, fresh and sweet, wrapped in chestnut leaves and bound with sedge in the way of the village by the river. She eyed it, and wrinkled her nose in distaste. I told her I could bring her a sack of walnuts or hazelnuts from the woods. She looked at me as though she’d bitten into an apple and discovered a worm.

I pressed on; if she wouldn't barter, would she wait two days, just until market day? I could have silver with which to pay her then. I told her about the apples, thinking that perhaps she would think of her son, and show a little kindness. She pursed her little rosebud mouth and told me she didn't provide goods on credit.

I left. I was upset. More than that, I was angry with myself. I should not have been counting my chickens before they hatched, but I had let myself think about dipping tart apples in coats of glossy caramel and rolling them crushed nuts. I was not so far removed from childhood that I did not remember the rare pleasure of sweets, and I would have joined the children in their delight.

All the same, I made do. I toasted whole hazelnuts with sugar, and the children’s faces were still bright with joy. In the days following, I foraged in the woods, laying in supplies of gingerroot and willow bark for the winter, and so it was several days before I learned that the dairy farmer’s wife had lost her son.

A fever. A fall. No two stories were alike. After his death, the whispers began.

It was one of the children who brought me fresh news, with an honesty that was all the crueler for its innocence. The dairy farmer’s wife had told another story. I had come to her for butter, and she had refused me because she had no more to sell. In my rage, I had cursed her son, and he had sickened and died.

Cursed him to death. A laughable idea. I knew no magic. If I had magic, wouldn’t I be fat and prosperous? Wouldn’t I dwell in a fine house in the village, and not a chilly tower of stone? Wouldn’t I have my own cow - nay, several cows - to give milk for butter?

The villagers didn’t laugh. They called me a witch, and some of the older children threw stones. One of the tavern girls came to me for a love potion. She left, hissing angry words, when I told her I could lance a boil and set a broken bone, but I could no more give her a love potion than I could charm lead into gold. The tower took on a new name. Not the watchtower, but the witch’s tower. Some claimed that I had made my home there because I could perform dark magic in its lookout.

I spent the winter in the tower with my goat and speckled hen, waiting for spring. When the snows melted and the ground thawed, I cleared stones from the earth and turned the soil, sowing seeds and bringing whole plants from the meadows and woods to make a garden. When I brought baskets filled with pea shoots and rhubarb to the first market of the new season, the villagers’ words were kind, their memories softened by the long dark months. A fear that had been banding my chest loosened and slackened.

The dairy farmer’s stall displayed pots of cream quark and muslin-wrapped cheeses, flecked with herbs or rolled in ash. The farmer cut morsels for passers-by to sample, but his gaze kept returning to his wife, his eyes hungry enough to devour her whole. Her eyes were on the crowd, and when she saw me, she opened her mouth. Witch, she called. Stay away. I’ll not let you take this child too.

Then I saw it, the swelling beneath her gown. The farmer’s eyes changed when he looked at her belly, turning hard like flint. As though he could vanish away that swelling if he only wished it hard enough. I am no more a fortune-teller than I am a witch, but I looked at them both and saw nothing but an ill-omened end.

I found my speckled hen with a broken, bloodied wing today. The farmer’s wife stirred up the villagers’ memories, and a stone found its mark. The damage was more than I could mend, and I put a knife to her throat for mercy's sake.

I can still hear him, scrabbling in the dirt. Trampling my radishes and uprooting my thyme. After each and every visit in the night, I've spent the morning mending the damage he has wrought. It wears upon my patience, this petty thievery. He is fat and prosperous, and I could not even begin to beggar him, not even if he paid me twice over for all the harvest of my garden.

If it's a witch they want, it's a witch they'll get. I don’t need to threaten him. If I walk up from behind while holding a knife, still bloody from butchering my poor speckled hen, his uneasy mind will do the rest. If I whisper, he’ll cower and piss himself in fear.

I wonder what he'll do, what he'll say. What might a gibbering man promise me, to deliver his beloved wife from harm?

Golden Couscous Salad

Beets are rich in both folate and iron, both important nutrients during pregnancy. This salad uses golden beets for their color, but normal red beets are fine if you don't mind that they'll turn the couscous pink. I serve this salad cold during late summer, but it can also be eaten warm during cooler months.

(Serves one, with leftovers. Recipe scales up well.)

Preheat the oven to 400F. Scrub two medium-sized golden beets, pierce them all over with a fork, and wrap them in tinfoil. Place them on a baking tray or in a cake tin, and roast for an hour or so, or until the beets are tender when poked with a knife. Uncover them carefully, and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, zest half an orange and cut it into segments.

In a microwave-safe bowl, cover half a cup of couscous with half a cup of water. Let stand until water is fully absorbed. Cover and cook in microwave for five to six minutes, or until tender and fluffy.  

Photo above is not my work.

While the couscous is still hot, stir in a quarter-teaspoon salt, half a tablespoon of olive oil, two teaspoons apple cider vinegar, a quarter-teaspoon ground cumin, a quarter-teaspoon cinnamon, and the zest from the orange half. Let the mixture sit.

Take the beets and rub them to slip them out of their skins. Cut them into dice. Finely chop a quarter of a red onion. Stir the beets, onion, and orange segments into the couscous.

Before serving, stir in a quarter-cup of flaked almonds and a generous quantity of chopped fresh mint. Garnish with additional chopped mint (and extra oranges, if you like.)

Note: If you're making this salad to serve cold, let the couscous and the beets cool completely before combining everything. Add the almonds and mint until just before serving.