I never know how much you’re supposed to talk about the behind-the-scenes of working on a book. It’s tricky not to talk about the thing that is consuming your life, but a lot of cookbook authors seem to prefer to keep it chic and not say a word until the publicity wind up to pub-day truly begins. From afar, I understand this approach. It has a pleasing sense of surprise, and the delight that you could soon hold the physical object in your hand. My own book won’t be available until Fall 2027. If I don’t hold my tongue, will you be tired of hearing about it by then? I guess I’ll never know! I’ve always been a yapper.

A few months ago I turned in my first draft, and just this past week we shot more than half the photos. It was a herculean feat with a small but nimble team of four (myself included). I worked with photographer Denny Culbert, prop stylist Suzonne Stirling, and baker Haley Adams. I styled all of the food (and baked about half of the cakes as well, while Haley prepped the rest). We took over half my house and by the time we were through it looked like a bomb had gone off. Someday soon I’ll do a recap of all the textiles I bought off Ebay to use as backdrops (in the meantime please visit this store which sells remnants of the most gorgeous vintage silk kimonos, like the one pictured below). At the end of May, we’ll do it all over again to take the rest of the photos!

Meanwhile, it’s nearly Easter, and I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that you could spend some hours baking a lamb cake this weekend. In case you missed it, I’ve previously written about my love for lamb cakes here. New Orleans has hosted an annual Gay Easter Parade for over twenty years, and this time of year always gets me in my feelings about my love for the queer community, baking projects as artifacts of kitsch, and the joy of making a demented edible companion. Don’t worry if you don’t have a lamb cake pan - I have a tutorial that doesn’t require one here!

On Saturday at 4pm central, I’ll be hosting a live virtual lamb cake decorating session that I’m calling the First Annual Gay Easter Bake-Along. To join, email a donation of any size to any organization benefitting queer and trans people in your community to bayousaintcake@gmail.com. In return, I’ll send you a recipe packet and invite you to the Zoom! The packet includes two cakes (one is kosher for Passover) and a buttercream. You have until Saturday at noon (US central time) to email me your receipts! Short notice, I know, but there’s always next year.

Happy Gay Easter,

Bronwen

The other day, I was reflecting on the labor of “putting on” the holidays, even for our petite family of two. Standing on our front porch on a chilly evening, I watched my wife plug in not one, not two, but FOUR strands of Christmas lights only to see that each and every one of them had bit the dust. Gazing out at our neighbor’s impeccable lighting display, I felt like a star in our very own holiday slapstick film. This was shortly after I’d completely coated my hands in an impenetrable layer of pine tree sap while attempting to right our tippy Christmas tree. We’ll get there in the end, surely!

Right under the deadline, I’ve got a new holiday cookie idea for you: a deeply spiced mulled wine pear butter linzer. The title is a mouthful but they’re truly so good. In years past I’ve brought you two or three holiday cookies, but I’m feeling good about paring back this time. You can find recipes for chestnut sandwich cremes and maple pecan panforte here, and recipes for panettone cookies, pistachio, olive oil, and cranberry jam bars, and coffee digestives here. I also whipped up two new recipes for paid subscribers of Nicola Lamb’s : fruitcake bon bons and stollen muffins.

In case you missed it, I’m hosting a cake raffle! The proceeds go to supporting people experiencing food insecurity in New Orleans right now. You can learn more details here. Only locals can win, but anyone can donate if you’re so moved!

On to the show!

The following recipe is sponsored by California Wines.

I’m thrilled to be presenting you with a recipe in partnership with California wine today! Just in time for the holidays, I have a mulled wine pear butter for you - a fruity, deeply spiced, burgundy-toned spread that is equally delicious tucked into a linzer cookie as it is on a cheese board. In fact, I’ve already put a sharp cheddar and pear butter grilled cheese sandwich on my menu plan for next week. If you’re partial to the dramatic, jewel-like glow of red-wine poached pears, I know you’ll love this pear butter.

When cooking with wine, it’s paramount to choose a bottle you’d enjoy drinking as-is. This fruit butter calls for infusing a fruity, low-tannin California red, like a pinot noir or grenache, with winter spices. We then cook the wine down with pears and sugar until it is thick, glossy, and spreadable. The result is a concentrated expression of each element’s flavor: the floral-honey aroma of pears, the plush jamminess of a California red, and the warming prickle of cardamom, clove, and cinnamon. It takes a little while to cook the pear butter on the stovetop, but I consider this a bonus as it will fill your kitchen with the scent of mulled wine. Once cool, the pear butter makes an exceptional filling to a linzer cookie, perfect for rounding out your holiday cookie plate.

The recipe below calls for not-quite a full 750 ml bottle of wine - all the better to reserve a glass for enjoying alongside the fruits of your labor, or for sipping while you stir the pear butter on your stove. I loved the sensation of nibbling on a mulled wine pear butter linzer cookie (say that three times fast!) with a glass of the same wine I used in the recipe. It feels like a conversation come full circle: first, the bright, fluid acidity of the wine, then the vivid, spicy sweetness of the mulled wine pear butter, and back again.

Mulled Wine Pear Butter

Makes roughly 2 heaping cups of pear butter

Recipe notes: You’ll want to pick a low-tannin red, like pinot noir or grenache, since this recipe calls for reducing the wine a great deal. By the same token, resist being more liberal with the warming spices and sugar than I call for here. Once the pear butter is reduced, it will read more deeply spiced and sweeter than in the beginning of the cooking process. I don’t bother to peel my pears for this recipe, and you shouldn’t feel the need to either. A last important note: this recipe has not been tested for shelf-stable canning safety. Pears are a low-acid fruit, so you shouldn’t assume this pear butter is safe for canning. I treat it like a refrigerator jam, and chill or freeze it for long term storage.

2 ½ cups / 600 ml California red wine, such as pinot noir or grenache

⅔ cups / 148 grams brown sugar, light or dark

¼ cup + 2 tablespoons / 75 grams granulated sugar

3 tablespoons / 63 grams honey

1 large piece of orange peel, white pith removed

1 cinnamon stick

6 cardamom pods, whole

3 cloves, whole

1 star anise, whole

8 scant cups / 1060 grams pears, de-seeded with stems removed, roughly chopped (about 6 large pears)

3 tablespoons / 45 grams lemon juice, freshly squeezed

In a large, non reactive pot, combine the wine, brown sugar, granulated sugar, honey, orange peel, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, and star anise. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved, then reduce the heat and simmer for ten minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the wine to infuse for an additional twenty minutes. Then, strain the orange peel and spices out of the wine.

Return the wine to the pot (no need to wash it) followed by the chopped pears and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat for about fifteen minutes, until the pears are soft and infused with red color. If your pears are very ripe, this could happen quite a bit faster.

Puree the wine and the pears together until very smooth. Take care pureeing the hot liquid: do it in small batches for your safety. You may also use an immersion blender. Return the pear puree to the pot and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, for 35 to 40 minutes. The pear butter will feel quite loose at first and slowly thicken. The thicker the pear butter gets, the more you should stir it so that the bottom doesn’t scorch. You’ll also want to lower the heat as the pear butter progresses, so that it doesn’t spit furiously at you (though you may still need to wipe your backsplash down when done, and consider wearing long sleeves).

When the pear butter is done, it will be thick enough that your spatula leaves a distinct path in the bottom of the pan, and the butter will be bubbling furiously. My friend Camilla Wynne describes it like so in her book Jam Bake: “when you pull the the spatula through, it will sound like a slavering ogre”. I’ve never heard it said more accurately!

Scrape the finished mulled wine pear butter into a heat proof container and allow it to cool. Refrigerate it for long-term storage. It will last for several weeks. If you like, use it to fill linzer cookies (recipe follows).

Bonus Recipe: Linzer Cookie Dough

This is a very traditional linzer cookie dough with a touch of almond flour for tenderness. I used to prefer my linzer cookies very golden brown and crisp. Lately, I like to bake them until they have only just barely begun to turn golden. After I fill them with jam, I age them for about six hours before serving so that they soften even more.

If you’re strict with your rolling and re-rolling and punch your cookies out carefully, you can get 18 one-inch round linzers from this recipe. However, I almost always double it so I have plenty of dough to work with, especially if I’m trying to hit a particular total number of finished linzers for a cookie box. I love making linzer cookies in various sizes and shapes for one platter (so elegant!). The linzers pictured below are giant, three-bite cookies, almost like a petite dessert unto themselves. You can glaze them with either a flat icing or dust them with powdered sugar (I used a little grenadine and lemon juice to make the pictured pink icing).

Almond Linzer Cookie Dough

Makes about 18 one-inch linzer cookies.

1 ¾ cup / 210 grams all purpose flour

½ cup / 45 grams almond flour

½ teaspoon salt

⅛ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated (optional)

1 ½ sticks / 170 grams butter, cool room temperature (between 65 and 68°F)

½ cup / 100 grams sugar

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon milk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

In a small bowl, combine the all purpose flour, almond flour, salt, and nutmeg.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar. Cream on medium-low speed for about a minute, until the sugar is fully incorporated into the butter and just beginning to lighten (no need to cream “until light and fluffy”). Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined, about one minute. The dough might look quite crumbly. Add the milk and vanilla and continue to mix on low speed until a cohesive dough has just formed. You may need to knead it gently by hand until it just comes together.

Immediately place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll into a thin, even sheet about ¾ centimeter high. Slide the parchment onto a sheet tray and place in the fridge. Chill until firm, about 20 minutes.

When the dough is firm, cut out your cookie rounds. Using a second, smaller cookie cutter, cut a hole in the center of half the cookies. Gather up the scraps of dough and repeat the rolling, chilling, and cutting process once more. Keep unbaked cookies cold while you’re working.

When you are ready to bake your cookies, preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the cookies on two sheet trays. Bake for 11-14 minutes rotating once from top to bottom and front to back, or until the cookies are just beginning to tinge golden brown at the base and edges and feel firm to the touch. Let cool completely.

When you are ready to fill your cookies, dust the “top” halves with powdered sugar (or glaze with a flat icing). Turn the remaining “bottom” cookies over so that their flatter sides are now facing up. Pipe a dollop of pear butter into the center of each cookie, then place the top cookie on it to make a sandwich.

Linzer cookies can be stored in a covered container at room temperature for up to 24 hours, or refrigerated for up to three days.

When I first got my copy of Nicole Rucker’s whip-smart new cookbook, Fat and Flour: The Art of the Simple Bake, I was struck by how Nicole isn’t married to one “right” way of developing a recipe. You should buy the book to learn more, but from her cold-butter cookie method to her cold-oven pound cake, Nicole is willing to elide convention in pursuit of a specific texture, flavor, or feel.

In the pie chapter of the book, I learned that Nicole relies on modified cornstarch, in the form of instant pudding mix, for many of her cream pies. Modified cornstarch is what allows instant pudding to thicken without the application of heat and without the presence of eggs. It’s marvelously stable and resistant to weeping. If you’ve ever made instant pudding (which I somehow had gone my entire life without ever doing), then you’ll also know it’s super fast to put together. When set, a pastry cream made with modified cornstarch doesn’t have the powdery flavor of similar custards made with too-much conventional cornstarch. The result is a sliceable custard that retains the delicate mouthfeel of soft cream, rather than the bouncy, firm feel of custards set with a lot of gelatin. I’ve also learned home bakers swear by it for setting fruit pies, or for stabilizing whipped cream. This blog post over on King Arthur Baking delves into more of those possibilities.

There are some that might feel that modified cornstarch is a sort of frankenfood, an unnatural ingredient born of science rather than tradition. But honestly, you could make a similar argument about white flour, sheet gelatin, or commercial pectin- all ingredients transformed beyond their natural state, all useful when bent towards a specific purpose. The real drawback, for me, is the fact that you have to mail-order it (and I haven’t given you a ton of time to procure it). The recipe below uses modified cornstarch under the brand name Instant ClearJel. You can buy it on King Arthur’s website for $1.24/ounce, or on Nuts.com for $.47/ounce (though you’ll have to buy a one pound bag). It’s also on Amazon in various prices and sizes.

As soon as I began fiddling with Instant ClearJel, I began dreaming of a pumpkin cream pie. My dark secret is that I don’t love a traditional pie crust with custard pies. I think a cookie crust is almost always more delicious! But I’ve never had much luck baking a very loose custard, like pumpkin pie filling, in a cookie crust without it invariably getting all sogged out. I’m not a pie expert! Keia or Nicole, if you’re reading this, feel free to school me.

Here, the only thing we have to bake is a graham cracker crust. The pumpkin custard is set with Instant ClearJel, chilled for a few hours in the fridge, and then topped with whipped cream. The crust stays crunchy for at least two days, so you could easily make this ahead (though I’d hold off on topping it with the cream until the day you plan to serve it). I didn’t see any need to stabilize the whipped cream here, though if you wanted to you could whip a little mascarpone into it to make it firmer for long-term storage (or use the Instant ClearJel, since you’ll already have it!).

I tinkered with the total amount of Instant ClearJel and ultimately settled on 30 grams so I could get a tidy slice from the pie. If you’re worried it will taste too “jellied” (though I didn’t find it so), you could begin with less starch - say, 20 grams. Since it works nearly instantly, you can get a good sense of the consistency of the pie filling straight away, and you can always add a little more if you feel it needs it.

Another nice thing about this recipe is you can taste the pumpkin custard and adjust the seasoning before you fill the shell. Technically you can do this with even a conventional pumpkin pie (and I always do), but it is nice to have a preview of the finished custard sans raw eggs. I used one teaspoon of Diaspora pumpkin pie spice for mine, and that felt plenty seasoned as far as warm spices go. Their spices are quite fresh and thus more potent (the tin of spice I used for this pie happened to be gifted, but I’ve been buying their spices on my own steam for years, and I’m not being otherwise compensated for saying how much I love them, which I do). I used the Burlap and Barrel Royal Cinnamon for the crust - also a wonderful, intensely aromatic product.

I used a (gifted) Row 7 koginut squash for one test and canned Libby’s pumpkin for another. They were both delicious. If you do choose to roast your own pumpkin, make sure it is deeply roasted. I like to halve mine with a little oil and roast them at 400°F for up to an hour. Then I let the squash cool and trim away any too-dark parts and peel off the skin. The underlying fresh should be velvety soft. Butternut squash would be tasty here, too!

I haven’t personally tested a vegan version of this pie, but I’m almost positive you could do a 1:1 swap of the dairy in the custard for their vegan counterparts and top it with a vegan whipped topping and have an extremely serviceable plant-based pumpkin cream pie. If you do so, let me know!

Pumpkin Cream Pie

Click here for a pinter-friendly version of this recipe

Makes one 9-inch pie, about 8 servings

Graham Cracker Crust

This recipe makes rather a lot of cookie crust for a nice, thick layer in the pie, which is how I like it.

180 grams / 1 ¾ cup graham cracker crumbs

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon kosher salt

84 grams / 6 tablespoons butter, melted

Prepare a 9” pie tin by spraying it with pan spray.

Combine the crumbs, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the melted butter until evenly combined. Press the resulting sandy, damp mixture into the pie tin. I like to use the lightly greased 1-cup measure with a flat bottom to press the crumbs firmly into the bottom and sides of the pan. Place the crumb crust in the freezer for twenty minutes or so (or until you are ready to bake).

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the crumb crust for 12-15 minutes, or until it is aromatic and the edges begin to tinge a darker brown color. Let the pie crust cool completely before filling.

Pumpkin Custard

250 grams / 1 packed cup deeply roasted squash flesh, or canned pumpkin

240 grams / 1 cup heavy cream

120 grams / ½ cup whole milk

106 grams / ½ packed cup brown sugar, light or dark

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or choose your own spice adventure)

¼ teaspoon salt

30 grams / ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar

30 grams / ¼ cup Instant ClearJel

In a medium pot, combine the squash, heavy cream, whole milk, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Warm gently, whisking all the while, until the sugar has dissolved and the spice has infused the custard. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Remove from the heat and let cool to warm room temperature before blending it until very smooth (you could use a conventional or immersion blender).

In a medium bowl, combine the confectioner’s sugar and Instant ClearJel and whisk until thoroughly combined. Make a well in the center and pour in the blended pumpkin cream, whisking all the while. The mixture should thicken up almost immediately. Continue to whisk until it is relatively lump-free. If you think there are any bits of unincorporated starch mixture, you can press it through a strainer, though I didn’t find the need to do so for mine.

Scrape the pumpkin custard into the prepared pie shell, smooth the top with an offset spatula, and chill for around two hours before serving. Top it with a brown sugar whipped cream (recipe follows).

Brown Sugar Whipped Cream

240 grams / 1 cup heavy cream

40 grams / 3 tablespoons brown sugar, light or dark

A dash of vanilla bean paste

A pinch of salt

Combine all of the ingredients in a chilled bowl, taste, and adjust the seasoning to your preference. Whip (by hand or in a mixer) until you achieve soft peaks. Dollop it onto the pie and use an offset spatula to smooth the top into attractive swirls. Chill the pie in the fridge if you’re not planning to serve it straight away. Grate a little nutmeg on top if you like.

I’m actually quite a slow recipe developer. In my restaurant days I might fiddle with a new dessert for two weeks before putting it on the menu, even if I was incorporating recipe elements I’d already mastered. This feels like an oddly embarrassing confession in an era where new recipes come at us at ever more breakneck speed. I’ve also learned that exhilarating high of nailing a recipe in one take, which has happened to me exactly twice through this process. Only twenty-odd more recipes to go!

Below I’ve got a sponsored recipe for you that took more than one take! But I love the results, and now I’ve still got a stash of caponata kolache in my freezer to pull out as impromptu writing snacks as I wind my way to the finish line. Eat kolache, they will fuel your creative exploits!

Content below sponsored by California Canned Olives.

Caponata Kolache with California Canned Green Olives

I don’t get to flex my savory baking muscles often, which is why I’m especially stoked to present this recipe to you today! Kolache are round, yeasted buns that can feature either sweet or savory fillings, and while they originate in the Czech Republic, they’ve taken on a life of their own in East and Central Texas. You can find both mom-and-pop and chain stores dedicated to fruit-filled or sausage kolaches all through this part of the lone star state. I’ve given my version a Sicilian spin, filling them with one of my favorite Italian condiments, sweet-and-sour caponata. My caponata features deeply roasted eggplant with onion, tomato, celery, golden raisins, and buttery green canned olives from California. Canned California green olives are milder and sweeter than other types of olives, bringing an approachable salinity and delicate flavor to the caponata. I use whole, pitted olives here to bring lots of olive flavor to every bite.

The caponata recipe makes more than you’ll need to fill the kolache, which is fine by me since I’ll serve the extra on pasta or freeze it for an easy bruschetta topping next time I’m hosting friends. I’ll be bringing these caponata kolache to tailgate at my bocce league meetups all through October!

Both the kolache dough and the caponata benefit from an overnight rest, so if you can swing it, start this process the day before you hope to serve them.

Caponata Kolache with California Canned Green Olives

Makes 14 kolache

For the caponata:

1 large eggplant, about 1 lb / 454 grams, cut into ½ inch cubes

¼ cup plus two tablespoons / 90 grams olive oil

1 large sweet onion, diced

Two tender inner ribs of celery, diced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 14-ounce can California whole, pitted, green olives, drained

¾ cup / 100 grams golden raisins

2 tablespoons / 26 grams brown sugar

3 tablespoons / 45 gram red wine vinegar

Salt and red pepper flake, to taste

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Toss the cubed eggplant in two tablespoons of olive oil and a hefty pinch of salt. Lay out on a greased sheet tray and roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until it has just begun to turn golden brown at the corners.

While the eggplant is roasting, add the diced onion to a large, non-reactive pot with the remaining olive oil. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is just beginning to turn golden at the edges and is fragrant, about ten minutes. Add the celery and cook for a few minutes more, until the celery is just beginning to soften. Then, add the tomato paste and the minced garlic and cook until the garlic is very fragrant and the tomato paste has just begun to caramelize, 2-3 minutes. Add the can of tomatoes, the olives, the golden raisins, and the roasted eggplant, and stir until everything is well coated before finally adding the red wine vinegar and the brown sugar. Taste the caponata and add salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Lower the heat and let it simmer and meld for another twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool to room temperature before storing in the fridge overnight. The caponata can be kept, covered and refrigerated, for up to four days. The flavor often improves as it sits.

For the kolache dough:

Note: The milk powder in this kolache dough helps keep the dough extra soft and fluffy, but you can omit if you don’t have it on hand. If you don’t have a dough hook, use the paddle attachment. The dough may not clear the sides of the bowl, but it will still come together.

2 ¾ cups / 330 grams all purpose flour

¼ cup / 50 grams sugar

2 tablespoons / 16 grams dried milk powder

One packet / 2 ¼ teaspoons / 7 grams instant yeast

1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt

½ cup / 120 grams whole milk, gently warmed to around 100°F

6 tablespoons / 85 grams butter, melted

2 tablespoons / 30 grams olive oil

2 eggs, large

Combine the flour, sugar, dried milk powder, instant yeast, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and give it a whisk to combine. Combine the warm milk, melted butter, and olive oil, and add them to the dry ingredients. Crack the eggs and add them to the stand mixer. Beat together all the ingredients with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. With the dough hook attachment, knead the dough on medium speed (speed 4) for 5-6 minutes, until it has cleared the sides of the bowl and looks smooth and elastic. Scrape the dough onto your counter and form it into a ball. Place the dough into a greased bowl, cover, then refrigerate overnight (or for at least two hours).

To assemble the kolache:

Note: if you’d like to add a cheese element to your kolache, you can tuck balls of fresh mozzarella under the caponata - you’ll need 14. You could also use goat cheese or a thick, strained ricotta beaten with an egg yolk.

14 small, fresh balls of mozzarella

1 egg, for egg wash

Minced or torn basil or parsley, olive oil, or crushed California green olives for garnish, optional

Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator. Portion the dough into 14 pieces (about 50 grams each) and roll them into balls, tucking the ends under. Let the balls rest on your counter for one or two minutes to relax, then place them onto two parchment-lined sheet trays, flattening them gently with the heel of your hand until they resemble discs. Mist them with oil spray, then cover them with plastic wrap or a clean cloth. Set aside for 45 minutes to an hour, or until they have risen. They’ll look quite puffy, and if you poke the center with your finger the indent will remain.

While the dough is rising, remove the caponata from the refrigerator and taste, adjusting the seasoning as necessary. Make the egg wash by beating the egg with a pinch of salt and a few tablespoons of water.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

When the dough has risen, grease the base of a small drinking glass, like a juice glass, that has a diameter of about two inches. Use the glass to make an indentation in the center of each kolache (you can also use greased fingers). You may need to re-grease the glass if it starts to stick. With a soft pastry brush, brush the entire surface of the kolache with egg wash. Place a mozzarella ball in each indentation. Cover it with about two tablespoons of caponata.

Bake the kolache in the preheated oven for 25-28 minutes, rotating the trays from top to bottom and front to back at 15 minutes. The kolache are done when they are an even golden brown. Once removed from the oven, use an offset spatula to place the kolache on a wire rack to cool completely.

The kolache can be garnished with a drizzle of olive oil, a few crushed green olives, or diced parsley or basil. They are best the day they are made, though leftovers can be frozen and then toasted to bring them back to life (I have stash in my freezer now for quick lunches).

I took the summer off from this newsletter, partly to work on other projects, and partly because the creeping horror of the news cycle has (mostly) robbed me of the ability to speak coherently on anything other than straightforward recipe-writing. With September has come the familiar comfort of knuckling back down to work, a back-to-school flush of energy (though I haven’t been a student in years).

I wonder if we talk enough about how writing recipes is actually technical writing? We might wax poetic in a headnote, the bulk of the work is typing out instructions, and it’s often incredibly boring. I’ve been doing a lot of this technical writing this summer, and it's given me newfound appreciation for the people who do it exceptionally well. To describe a detailed workflow with panache without letting style distract from form - it’s a remarkable thing! I’m also grateful that when the headlines are filled with monstrous behavior, I can sink into the formulaic rhythm of recipes, with their innate structure, straightforward rules, and familiar demands.

I have also taken comfort in following the work of the Gaza Soup Kitchen, who continue to feed people under unimaginably difficult conditions. You can support their work here.

Here is some of my recent work, in case you missed it:

• I wrote a blog post for King Arthur Baking on how to substitute one sized pan for another in your baking projects. This topic is by its nature a little dry! But I truly think willy-nilly pan subs are the bane of most home bakers. It matters so much more than you might realize. Pausing briefly to consider the volume of your pan and how that might affect your bake can make a world of difference to the success of your recipes.

• For Kitchen Projects, I developed recipes for American biscuits, strawberry shortcake, and peach cobbler. These are all free to access, though I have a fun pan biscuit recipe and a bunch of infused whipped creams tucked behind Nicola’s paywall as well.

• I wrote a piece for Cake Zine on my complicated feelings around the AI discourse from the perspective of a recipe developer. The essay generated a lot of debate, which I’m grateful for - I learned a lot. I am by nature very wary of purity culture, where strict adherence to a moral ideal is necessary for someone to be “good” or “correct”, and I see this crop up a great deal in discussions of AI. Can we be “good”, if we occasionally opt in to using AI? I still maintain that there are limited, acceptable use cases for the technology, but in the interest of learning more I recently read The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want, by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna. There are many fascinating takeaways from this book, but one of the most compelling ideas I learned is that, even among tech experts, there isn’t a single, agreed-upon definition of what artificial intelligence means. Further, we are frequently being sold “artificial intelligence” products that are essentially fancy spreadsheets. In order for these products to work, they have to be continually moderated by unseen human intervention, often consisting of underpaid laborers in the majority world. The book also led me to think more deeply about how we define intelligence and communication, and what we lose when we ascribe consciousness to what the authors call “language extruding machines”.

  At any rate, if you haven’t read the essay yet, check it out and feel free to yell at me in the comments section - I promise I’ll read it. Maybe in two years I’ll write another follow-up.

• If you haven’t yet read my essay on sugar, do check it out, especially as we descend towards Halloween aka candy season.

• Did you know I have online cake decorating classes? You can find them here. Buy them once, watch the videos and own the recipes forever. Subjects include stacking tiered cakes, dome cakes (still on trend IMO), and king cakes.

For pleasure, I’ve been reading loads of speculative fiction and weeding my garden. We went away for a week and on my return I realized our agave had sent out the long, sturdy protuberance of the only flower it will ever produce. Most agaves are monocarpic, which means they bloom once and then die.

The agave death process.

I have been trying to take comfort in the fact that this is a normal part of the plant’s life cycle, and feel privileged I get to witness it. I’m still sad, though.

I’m not sure how it’s taken me so long to get around to it but I finally finished The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. I found it an especially moving read after finishing The AI Con, as both discuss the limits of technology and the way language shapes our experience of the world. The Dispossessed also grapples with metaphysical concepts of time, which I promise is more gripping than it might sound. It reminded me of an old favorite from my childhood, Einstein’s Dreams by the physicist Alan Lightman, as well as the movie Arrival by director Denis Villeneuve, which is further based on the short story “Story of Your Life’ by Ted Chiang. Ted Chiang is additionally the author of several recent pieces on the failures of AI, such as “Why AI Isn’t Going to Make Art” and “Chat GPT is a Blurry JPEG of the Web”.

I’ve borrowed the phrase “death process” from the movie Arrival to think about my agave plant, as well - not an end, but a continuation.

I feel like I grew up with the tired stereotype of scientists thinking, dryly, only in terms of what they can prove, and all of these works remind me that scientists also passionately engage in conjecture about what cannot be made visible or demonstrable: both time, and what makes us human.

See you soon with my next piece, which is all about the weird and wonderful world of grain snobs.

-Bronwen

Another scene from my chaotic late-summer garden.

When I was in college, I studied literature under a professor who warned us about the seductive quality of the personal narrative. I remember her clear, tense gaze as she explained to a room full of young people that it might feel good to talk about our experiences, but this wasn’t analysis. We could not substitute telling personal stories for debate: we had to think about the work more deeply.

Her words have stuck with me. I think of them when I read personal narratives about wellness trends. Carnivore dieters, raw milk advocates, or people who argue that seed oils are toxic will often insist that they know these menus work because they, personally, feel better. How can you argue with someone’s feelings? A good storyteller can convince a Tiktok audience of thousands to forgo fruit and vegetables in favor of beef, organ meats, and butter. Another might persuade you that removing all added sugars from her child’s diet permanently fixed his hyperactivity. Would it make a difference if I were to tell you that the link between sweets and behavior is one sugar’s most enduring myths? It has been decisively shown that sugar does not cause hyperactivity in kids, but many parents will insist otherwise, based on their personal experience. Stories about the dangers of sugar are easy for us to believe - so easy that we rarely, if ever, interrogate if they are true.

On Tuesday, April 22nd, the United States’ Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared “Sugar is poison, and Americans need to know that it's poison”1. We are cautioned that sugar is everywhere - a malevolent force hiding in plain sight in supposedly healthy foods. A 2024 article in the Atlantic was entirely devoted to what the author, Yasmin Tayag, perceived as the fraudulent health benefits of most yogurt:

“Sugary flavorings and additives are how you get something that’s in the ballpark of ice cream, such as squeezable pouches of cotton-candy-flavored yogurt (which several brands offer)... Even yogurt options that don’t look dessertlike can still be laced with sugar. A cup of blueberry Chobani might seem to be a solid breakfast option, but it packs 14 grams of sugar.”

The word “laced” is notable, like how a punch might be laced with alcohol, or a party drug laced with a more dangerous substance. It implies peril. How else could you justify publishing 900 words about dessert-flavored yogurt in a national politics and culture magazine? Similarly, in January, The New York Times Magazine devoted its cover to a tongue-in-cheek personal essay from a woman traveling to an Austrian spa to cure her “addiction” to sugar - despite the fact that the author, Caity Weaver, was perfectly healthy. The health professionals at the facility couldn’t quite believe that her test results were so benign. Surely, considering her self-reported diet, she must be sick!

Weaver describes herself as “a hard-core sweets junkie”. Her essay repeats another pervasive belief about sugar - that like drugs, it is addictive. Cramming desserts at an airport lounge before the privation of her spa stay, Weaver writes:

“I also recognized this as frenzied and unscrupulous behavior, rather like throwing on my hazard lights to shoot up heroin while double parked outside the rehab facility”.

Despite a widely publicized study comparing the consumption of sugar with cocaine in rats, there’s no clear consensus that sugar is addictive. Unlike other addictive substances, like nicotine or opiates, the body needs sugar - in the form of glucose - to survive. And while eating sweetened foods may trigger compulsive behaviors that resemble some forms of addiction, sugar does not share the chemical mechanisms of a genuinely addictive substance. A 2016 review states:

“We find little evidence to support sugar addiction in humans, and findings from the animal literature suggest that addiction-like behaviours, such as bingeing, occur only in the context of intermittent access to sugar. These behaviours likely arise from intermittent access to sweet tasting or highly palatable foods, not the neurochemical effects of sugar.”

A rat might press a lever to taste sugar instead of cocaine, not because the sugar is more addictive than cocaine, but because sugar in its pure form is a rare delicacy for a rodent. Unsurprisingly, lacking our own, more complicated human motivations, a rat might always prefer food to drugs.

Frankly, this reminds me of my own childhood relationship to sugar. My mom, well-intentioned and in many ways ahead of her time, served my lactose-intolerant brother goat milk and garnished our oatmeal with spoonfuls of wheat germ and sunflower seeds. She also carefully moderated our access to sweets2. In turn, I became obsessed. After Halloween, knowing that most of my candy would be confiscated, I took to ripping holes in the seams of my stuffed animals and cramming them full of Tootsie Rolls and Sweet Tarts. My rat-like stashes of candy littered my room - I’d rediscover them well into my teens. I started baking from scratch at a young age, desperate to transform the raw ingredients in my house into cookies and cakes. In many ways this obsession has informed my whole life.

In my early twenties, broke and unemployed, I drifted into a job as a line cook. Women in kitchens, particularly those with a sweet tooth, are often shuttled to the dessert station. This has offered me a front-row seat to diner’s attitudes towards sugar. As a pastry chef, I’ve had my job compared to that of a drug dealer. I’ve been asked to work with alternative sugars, or as little sugar as possible. Patrons have interrogated me about the total gram amounts of sugar in a portion of a plated dessert. And at bake sales, I’ve been subject to the disapproving gaze of women who insist on telling me, unprompted, that they do not eat sugar and will not eat my cakes3.

In the past fifteen years, the panic around sugar has reached an even more manic pitch. Though discourse around the dangers of sugar has been around for some time, it reached new audiences with the increased popularity of detox diets. In Sugar Rush: Science, Politics and the Demonisation of Fatness, Karen Throsby writes that the idea of sugar as actually toxic became more widely accepted in the early 2010’s. In fact, it was in 2010 that the European Food Safety Authority defined “added” or “free” sugars as those added to a product during manufacturing or processing (as opposed to the “natural” sugars inherent in a food). This marked a new era in the effort to understand the potential harms of sugar beyond the framework of “empty calories”. Sugar is not just a non-nutrient-dense or high-calorie food. It is transformed into a malign substance that slowly kills us through diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or the shadowy ailment of inflammation.

We see the sugar-as-toxic narrative take hold in the rise of otherwise healthy people using glucose monitors to track their blood sugar, the popularity of “healthier” sugar alternatives such as coconut sugar, dates, monkfruit, or agave, and the MAHA-adjacent movement to lower the Food and Drug Administration’s guidance on the recommended amount of added sugar in the American diet. Currently, the FDA and the World Health Organization advise that added sugars make up no more than 10% of calories. This comes to about 50 grams of sugar for a 2000 calorie a day diet, or four tablespoons. The other day I exceeded my recommended limit by putting a drizzle of honey in a smoothie, eating one Trader Joe’s Meyer Lemon and Cream yogurt as a snack, and finishing my day with a single Cadbury Creme Egg (eaten exquisitely slowly, while watching Bachelor in Paradise, as God intended). Some might see this as evidence for how much added sugar is unnecessarily crammed into our food supply. I’m struck instead by how anodyne these foods are in the larger context of my varied diet.

With the conflation of sugar and poison came the rise of the powerful communication tool of social media. Sugar is a buzzword among TikTok and Instagram clean eating influencers, and every detox diet plan I have found advocates for the elimination of sweets. Amanda Chantal Bacon, founder of supplements and wellness brand Moonjuice4, is an oft-parodied example. In 2016, she shared with her Instagram followers a strategy for indulging in a rare sugary treat:

“I recommend having probiotics on hand and taking them now and before bed (prep your system to handle the sugar shock), a zero glycemic protein shake for breakfast, this afternoon, and tomorrow morning (helps to stabilize the adrenals), and an unsweetened green juice to hydrate, alkaline, and flush! Don’t feel guilty if you chose to indulge just own it and support yo’ self!”

In her case, the dangers of a handful of Halloween candy must be handled by 6 different products, including two doses of probiotics, a green juice, and three “low glycemic” protein smoothies. For Bacon, managing her sugar intake in this way is interwoven with her brand’s origin story. In her cookbook The Moon Juice Cookbook: Cook Cosmically for Body, Beauty, and Consciousness, she writes of being plagued by chronic, undiagnosable health problems as a young woman, until a chance encounter gave her the keys to wellness:

“One day my family was shopping for groceries in a health food store when my hacking cough drew attention from a number of strangers, including a kind-looking man who asked me to stick out my tongue and took my pulse. He turned out to be an Aryuvedic physician from India, and within minutes he had made a diagnosis and delineated for my mother all the foods I should avoid -the primary ones being wheat, cow’s milk, and sugar”.

Bacon is easy to spoof. Her story is reminiscent of many wellness influencers who cherry-pick bits and pieces of ayurvedic or indigenous practices and re-package them to be more palatable to white audiences. But her story has also made her rich, and her brand has since spawned countless knockoffs. Narratives like hers often feature the same themes: a pervasive ailment that Western medicine can’t diagnose, a wide range of vague and troubling symptoms, and a sweeping dietary change that resolves the illness. In telling her story, an influencer like Amanda Chantal Bacon presents herself as bravely countering mainstream health advice.

In the book Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, the feminist author Mellisa Febos makes a political case for the importance of storytelling - especially for women. In the essay “In Praise Of Navel Gazing”, Febos describes leading a writing class where her (mostly female) students shrink from including too much of themselves in their work, fearing that their essays will be dismissed as frivolous self-absorption. She describes moving through rarified writing circles, where everyone agrees that:

“Stories like hers belonged on talk shows, not in the hallowed realm of literary prose. Everyone knows we don't need another one of those. The genre of victimhood is already so crowded. So gauche.”

Febos counters this attitude, drawing on a 1986 study by Dr. James W. Pennebaker that showed writing about personal experiences can be therapeutic, even benefitting the immune system. Whether such therapeutic writing, a field that Pennebaker essentially created, is the same as art is besides the point. Febos argues:

“But to oppose the very idea of it is nonsensical, unless you consider what such bias reveals about our values as a culture. Knee-jerk bias backed by flimsy logic and pseudoscience has always been a preferred disguise of our national prejudices. That these topics of the body, the emotional interior, the domestic, the sexual, and the relational are all undervalued in intellectual literary terms, and are all being associated with the female sphere of being, is not a coincidence. This bias against personal writing is often a sexist mechanism, founded on the false binary between the emotional (female) and the intellectual (male), and intended to subordinate the former.”

I find the linking of bias and pseudoscience a fascinating element of Febos’ argument. It made me immediately want to ask the question- does writing about one’s own traumatic experience actually strengthen the immune system, or is that another example of an idea that we don’t need a whole lot of evidence to believe - because it feels right?

The truth is, it’s complicated! Pennebaker’s original studies were quite small, and while they have occasionally been reproduced, a more recent meta-analysis states “that expressive writing has minor or no effects on the subject’s health contrary to earlier findings”. I find it ironic that this potentially faulty premise is used to underline the power of personal narrative as a weapon against bias. If anything, science has shown the opposite: that our stories are riddled with cognitive bias, and despite the undeniable appeal of storytelling, we may not be the best arbiters of our own experience. We see this in critiques of eyewitness testimony. We also see it in the field of dietary science, a notoriously tricky place to find good data (more on that soon). This feminist push to elevate the personal narrative might unconsciously create an environment that allows misinformation to thrive.

Febos’ mention of the immune system reflects a broader cultural interest in the workings of this complex bodily function, particularly when it comes to the idea of inflammation and anti-inflammatory diets. A sustained immune response that can damage cells in the body, chronic inflammation can be tricky to diagnose. The symptoms are vague, including sleeplessness, weight gain, weight loss, joint pain, and even depression5. In the #1 bestselling diet plan and cookbook The Whole 30, the authors Melissa Hartwig Urban and Dallas Hartwig write of inflammation:

“Are your energy levels inconsistent or nonexistent? Do you have aches and pains that can’t be explained by overuse or injury? Are you having a hard time losing weight no matter how hard you try? Do you have some sort of condition (like skin issues, digestive ailments, seasonal allergies, or chronic fatigue) that medication hasn’t helped?”

They then claim, without citation, that “systemic inflammation starts in your gut”, and the first foods that must be eliminated to combat inflammation are “added sugar and artificial sweeteners”:

“We refer to your brain’s unrelenting demand for sugar, junk food, or simple carbs as your ‘Sugar Dragon’. The more you feed it, the more fire it breathes, and the stronger it gets. The only way to slay your Sugar Dragon is to starve it, which is why the Whole30 allows for no added sugar - not some, not less, but none.”

One of the original founders of Whole30, Melissa Hartwig Urban, has now published eight additional bestselling books and an app on the subject. She has since expanded the original concept into a brand about the power of boundary-setting - both around food and in your personal life. Urban even credits healthy eating as helping her overcome drug addiction after two stints in rehab.

I’m reminded of Febos’ earlier point - that "these topics of the body, the emotional interior, the domestic, the sexual, and the relational are all undervalued”. I know few women who feel like they get a fair shake at their doctor’s offices, and fewer still who feel heard at work, or, often, in their domestic partnerships with men. How easy is it to take the reactionary stance- to affirm the power of personal narrative above all else? Influencers like Amanda Chantal Bacon and Melissa Hartwig Urban have spun their personal stories into powerful brands. But is all of this time, money, stress, and effort put towards managing our access to sugar even necessary?

In her cookbook Bright Cooking, the chef Camile Beccara writes:

“I dislike consuming refined sugar, as I find it heavy on the palate and very bad for your body, so I take it upon myself to bake my own cakes, cookies, and pies so I can control the sweetness. Usually when I bake using a recipe I didn’t develop, I swap the white sugar for natural sweeteners, such as granulated cane sugar, honey, or maple syrup, cut the sugar by a quarter, and increase the salt by a pinch or two more. I find the sweetness becomes much more balanced, and I can taste the other elements better”.

I won’t argue with Beccara about finding sugar heavy on the palate: that is subjective. But what does it mean when a well-meaning chef can suggest replacing white sugar with the chemically identical granulated cane sugar without pushback from editors? Both are sucrose, while the latter, sometimes marketed as evaporated cane juice, turbinado, or “natural” sugar, may have a more caramel color and the slight presence of added minerals, so small as to be nutritionally obsolete6. The word natural, itself so seductive, here means less refined, but it doesn’t offer a meaningful level of micronutrients. Nor does the frequently heralded agave nectar bear much difference to its reviled cousin, high fructose corn syrup. Honey and maple syrup might have slightly different chemical structures, but once metabolized they remain simple carbohydrates, and neither offers a meaningful health benefit over cane sugar7.

What about the idea that sugar is “bad for your body”? You will rarely find a double-blind study in dietary research because of the enormous expense and emotional hardship involved in trapping large numbers of people in a lab and strictly controlling their diet. Instead, scientists frequently rely on survey data - and people are unreliable narrators of what and how much we eat8. One scientific review suggests that reports based on self-reported survey data- otherwise known as “memory-based dietary assessment methods” or M-BMs- are “fundamentally and fatally flawed”. I think the full quote bears reading:

“First, the assumption that human memory can provide accurate or precise reproductions of past ingestive behavior is indisputably false. Second, M-BMs require participants to submit to protocols that mimic procedures known to induce false recall. Third, the subjective (ie, not publicly accessible) mental phenomena (ie, memories) from which M-BM data are derived cannot be independently observed, quantified, or falsified; as such, these data are pseudoscientific and inadmissible in scientific research. Fourth, the failure to objectively measure physical activity in analyses renders inferences regarding diet-health relationships equivocal. Given the overwhelming evidence in support of our position, we conclude that M-BM data cannot be used to inform national dietary guidelines and that the continued funding of M-BMs constitutes an unscientific and major misuse of research resources.” (emphasis mine)

And yet, many of the studies referenced when discussing the dangers of sugar are based on self-reported assessments like these. Further, even the strongest studies in this area can only show association between high levels of added sugar and, for instance, heart disease - not causation. A deeper dive into these studies rarely suggests the need to totally eliminate added sugar from one’s diet. In an essay titled “Sugar and Health: a Deep Dive into the Science”, dietician writes:

“According to the evidence that we have linking added sugar with cardiovascular disease, the people in the quintile with the lowest added sugar consumption, who, remember, have the lowest risk of dying from heart disease, consume an amount of added sugar equivalent to eating some sweetened foods at every meal and every snack, and having dessert every day” (emphasis mine).

By this metric, my own intake of sweets - which our health secretary would probably characterize as extreme - puts me squarely in the lowest risk category for dying of heart disease. Regardless, in 2018 the WHO recommended that, while a 10% total calories from added sugars remains the official recommendation, we should in fact aim for 5% to “provide additional health benefits”. This means I could exceed the new recommended amount by eating three tablespoons of Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce, a single Odwalla strawberry banana smoothie, or just one of my beloved Cadbury Creme Eggs.

And what of diabetes, the disease so frequently name-dropped by NYT food section commentators demanding that recipe developers stop pushing sugar? Harrison writes:

“When it comes to the link between sugar intake and diabetes prevention, all the same issues we’ve been discussing still apply, but the evidence is even spottier than that on CVD [cardiovascular disease] and sugar. Yes, there are some studies that show a correlation between higher intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and the development of Type 2 diabetes (T2D), but there are also quite a few studies that find no link between overall or added sugar consumption and T2D incidence—and a few studies have even shown that higher sugar consumption is associated with a lower risk of T2D.”

The link between sugar and inflammation also falls apart under scrutiny. Immunologist (who does terrific work debunking wellness scams in her own newsletter) writes in the article “Autoimmune Diets are Not Based in Science” that the popular understanding of inflammation would have us believe that it causes various diseases. Dr. Love argues that these systemic immune responses are symptoms, not instigators. The actual causes tend to be a complex web of interacting forces, from the environment, genetics, or previous illness. The idea that one strict elimination diet, such as Whole30, could address a complex list of autoimmune or inflammatory disorders is reductive. She writes,

“In general, the diet demonizes sugars, even those which are found in healthy foods like fruits and vegetables… Sugar is sugar, no matter the source. All carbohydrates are inevitably broken down into simply monosaccharides to be shuttled into that cellular respiration pathway. Ultimately, sugar from white sugar (sucrose, a 1:1 ratio of glucose:fructose) and sugar from honey (also a 1:1 ratio of glucose:fructose) (or fruits) get processed very similarly by our bodies. Our body doesn’t differentiate the source of a macromolecule.” (emphasis mine)

The links between sugar consumption and dementia are equally shaky. And of particular note is the dangerous idea that sugar “feeds” cancer. It doesn’t, but a person’s passionately-told story about curing their cancer through diet can have fatal consequences if it discourages people from seeking proven treatments. Dr. Love writes:

“It’s long past the time for “politeness” on these topics. Health misinformation is a tangible danger to society. That’s incredibly evident in the cancer space, a category of diseases that are already poorly understood and incredibly difficult to treat. Endorsing, elevating, and legitimizing falsehoods is harmful. Collective effort is needed to combat it. In the case of cancer, truth is a matter of life and death.”

Learning that much of our popular beliefs about sugar are based on a shaky foundation has felt personally unmooring. Even as someone who has been curious about body liberation and anti-diet culture for years, understanding how little real consensus there is has made me feel so much anger. I’m angry at my primary care doctors for routinely offering diet advice that has not been proven to work for the majority of people. I’m frustrated at my fellow chefs and food writers for casually repeating that sugar is addictive and bad for you without curiosity or introspection. And yes, I’m indignant that people insist their personal stories about the toxicity of sugar are valuable enough to merit population-level dietary interventions.

In Diet and the Disease of Civilization, culture critic Adrienne Rose Bitar traces how modern diet plans reflect broader ideas about the failures of contemporary society, contrasting the diseased present with an idyllic, pre-industrial past. Many low-or-no added sugar diet plans, such as paleo, keto, and Whole30, warn that chronic disease results when we stray from how we originally evolved to eat. Bitar writes,

“By recalibrating the palate away from industrial foods, these foodways redefine pleasure as checked desire—not euphoric abandon. To borrow Ruth Levitas’s language, the diet promises to “re-educate desire” by teaching the palate to resist the extreme flavors of modern foods and, instead, value and desire “natural” Paleo foods.”

Bitar shows how our stories about diet and nutrition aren’t static. They have their own narrative thrust and internal logic, and the way these stories change over time reflects our values as a culture. The moral panic about sugar isn’t solely about the societal fear of being fat - though fatphobia certainly plays a part, regardless of if a meal plan is framed as a “diet” or a “wellness journey”. I don’t think it is hyperbolic to compare it to the project of fascism and its obsession with allegiance and behavior, its intolerance for weakness, and its rejection of modernism. As Melisa Febos wrote,

“Knee-jerk bias backed by flimsy logic and pseudoscience has always been a preferred disguise of our national prejudices”.

Much of the allure of MAHA is its populist promise to restore a better, healthier way of life. This myth-making about the lost promise of the past actively obscures the dismantling of the institutions that protect public health. Explicitly pro-MAHA social media influencers, like Vani Hari and Casey Means, function as the propaganda arm of this effort.

The nationwide push to ban the purchase of candy and soda with food stamps is one example. Reporter Michael Hobbes recently traced this effort to the conservative think tank the Foundation for Government Accountability. The FGA’s stated goal is to not just restrict the amount of added sugar people on food stamps can buy, but to ultimately eviscerate SNAP, the Supplemental Food Assistance Program, entirely. The slippery slope metaphor might be a bit tired at this point, but we cannot compromise with authoritarians, even on these supposedly minor points. On May 1st, my own governor, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, signed an executive order seeking to ban the purchase of candy and soda with SNAP. RFK Jr. was on a victory lap this past week celebrating similar MAHA legislation by other states. These efforts were lauded in another Atlantic article, written by the nominally liberal health policy reporter Nicholas Florko. Florko enjoins that “Republicans are right about soda” even while describing the work of the FGA and outlining the (justified) concerns of SNAP advocates. His reasoning? Limiting SNAP could be a useful test case:

“Rather than opposing these efforts outright, Democrats should see them as an opportunity. There’s very little research testing the effects of such a soda ban, so a pilot program would help “identify unintended consequences or questions we will later wish we asked,” Jerold Mande, a former USDA and FDA official who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, told me. Maybe then we can finally get to the bottom of the decades-long debate over whether soda bans are a good idea.”

The message is: defunding SNAP would be bad, but the hypothetical, unproven benefits of limiting added sugar purchases outweighs the proven, demonstrable fact that SNAP lowers healthcare costs and improves nutrition for poor families. So we should let the Republicans win on this one! It makes me feel completely insane. We can criticize our food systems without parroting stupid and cruel ideas in the name of public health. We do not need to do the work of the fascists for them!

There are people, many of them women, who have found low-or-no sugar diets personally transformative. It can feel grotesque to point out that an anecdote is not evidence. But I think the truth matters, even if that truth is messy and unsatisfying. If our attention is diverted by seductive stories of transformation through diet, we avoid the sticky, uncomfortable work of asking ourselves what health really means in an America so ruthlessly committed to denying basic care. I find the characterization of sugar as toxic as particularly pernicious because the barrier to entry is so low. In the past few weeks I’ve seen otherwise compassionate people applaud the administration’s demonization of sugars, an essential macronutrient that provides energy to every cell in our body and brain. What does this framing of sugar really say? That we value the denial of pleasure above all else. That our health is entirely in our hands. And if we are not well, then we have only ourselves and our imperfect desire for sweetness to blame.

My first reported story for the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy podcast debuts today! I’ve been working on it since last year, and I’m so proud that it’s finally here. You can find it here, or on any of your preferred audio platforms under the Gravy podcast - Fruitcake in Space.

I tell the story of a woman named Mary Klicka, who worked on a peculiar fruitcake recipe for a military laboratory in the 1960’s. The fruitcake was developed to be a single-item, nutritionally-fortified emergency ration… for astronauts. If needed, a crewmember could survive by eating this fruitcake alone for up to three years.

In reporting this story, I learned that this fruitcake is more than just a throwaway anecdote in NASA’s early history. It illuminates the complex labor of selecting and preparing food for space travel, and how this work can shape the success or failure of scientific missions. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot in this era that pits biohacked nutrition with its powders and bars against the increasing demonization of processed foods. Ultimately, how we obtain the necessary calories to survive in space is a delicate balance between nutrition science, technology, and the cultural significance of a meal.

I talk to Vickie Kloeris, the former manager of NASA Food Systems, Jennifer Levasseur, a curator and specialist on space food artifacts at the Air and Space Museum, and Cady Coleman, a retired NASA astronaut. I’m incredibly grateful to these women for lending me their time - I had to trim down several hours of discussion for the roughly 26 minutes featured in the podcast, and it was SO HARD.

Today in the newsletter, I want to share some details about this story that you won’t hear in the podcast.

How did I find this story?

I have my wife to thank for that! I’ve been mulling over a fruitcake-focused project for some time. I had a fruitcake aging club during the pandemic and have written about it for the Washington Post.

I’ve also had a long-time fascination with the space program, rooted in childhood trips to the National Air and Space Museum. That’s how I happened to see this pop up on the museum’s Instagram feed:

This fruitcake specimen flew all the way to the moon and back and now lives in the museum’s archives. I immediately needed to find the original recipe. My wife Sophie sometimes follows me down these rabbit holes, which led her to look up the term “nasa fruitcake” on Google Scholar and scroll through some of the results. That’s how she found Mary Klicka’s report, part of a whole host of declassified research available through the Defense Technical Information Center.

We both promptly lost our minds: a fruitcake developed to be the sole emergency ration for astronauts for up to three years?! I had to learn more.

For what it’s worth, I did ask the Air and Space Museum if I could actually see the Apollo fruitcake, but it wasn’t possible (I got an incredible interview with a museum curator instead).

Why a podcast?

I’ve been telling folks about Klicka’s fruitcake for several years now, and two of my pals (both named Nicole!) told me it should be a podcast. This seemed crazy to me - I assumed that I’d need year’s worth of technical knowledge to pull it off. My friend Katie Fernelius, reporter and seasoned podcast producer, convinced me to pitch it to Gravy anyway. Katie also co-produced the episode with me (aka lending me all the equipment I needed, patiently teaching me how to use it, and answering all of my million questions). I’m incredibly grateful to her for pushing me to do this. Katie is currently a senior reporter for Verite News in New Orleans, doing vital local investigative journalism: like this piece on a local tech partnership gone wrong, or this piece on the contract to build a controversial temporary homeless shelter. Katie is also a producer on the podcast A Field Guide to Gay Animals, among many others.

In addition to all of the recording equipment, Katie lent me the book Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel. Abel is a cartoonist and the book takes the form of a graphic novel, featuring interviews with a host of radio and podcast producers who are now household names. I found it incredibly helpful in thinking about how to shape an audio story - it’s so different from writing an essay!

On Katie’s recommendation, I used the program Descript to cut together the audio for the podcast. It’s a surprisingly intuitive tool that allows you to re-arrange audio clips as blocks of text in a transcript. The final version was mastered by Clay Jones of Broadcast Studio in Oxford, Mississippi, who also wove in some of the music for the episode. I worked with Sara Camp Milam and Olivia Terenzio of the Southern Foodways Alliance to edit and shape the story, and Lisa Pollak fact checked the episode.

Recreating the fruitcake

I always knew that I wanted to bake Klicka’s fruitcake for this story, and part of the audio of that process made its way onto the podcast. I didn’t have room on the pod to discuss how I actually sourced the recipe.

Klicka’s research has been referenced before a handful of times, and a version of the lab’s fruitcake recipe can even be found in a children’s book for National Geographic Kids called Food Fight: A Mouthwatering History of WHO ate WHAT and WHY Through the Ages by Tanya Steel. This recipe didn’t feel quite right to me, though - it uses 6 eggs to one cup flour, for one thing, and lists walnuts as an ingredient even though I knew from Klicka’s original report that they used pecans. Quote:

“Nuts shall be pecan pieces and shall conform to the standard for U.S. No. 1 pecan pieces, small pieces as defined in U.S. Standards for Grades of Shelled Pecans or Almonds”.

The report does contain the “recipe”, presented as ratios of ingredients, which is often how professional bakers think of recipes anyway:

While I could certainly have used these percentages to model my own recipe, I was distracted by another tempting reference to hunt down - a version of Natick’s recipe that had been distributed to newspapers in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I found two references to this via foodtimeline.org, a delightfully old-fashioned research website that offers full citations from actual texts, compiled by a woman named Lynne Olver. The website dates from 1999 and looks it, but the information can be invaluable. From there, I learned that the Gettysburg Times wrote a story called "Moonmen's Fruitcake Recipe Given” on December 16, 1972. Thrillingly, Google News had a digitized copy of the newspaper. I didn’t find it in the December 16th edition, but rather the December 18th:

I’d email Olver to correct the date, but she passed away several years ago. Ultimately her citation led me to the recipe I used to recreate the fruitcake (soy flour, glacé cherries, and all). You can find the full recipe here. Shout out to my pal Camille, who let me come to her restaurant and use the vac sealer for this photo.

In the upper right hand section of this next photo, you can see a shot of NASA fruitcake as it was packaged during the Mercury era.

Food kit used by Mercury astronauts. Some is dehydrated and needs water, other packets are ready to eat. Size is measured relative to a ruler. Included are packets of mushroom soup, orange-grapefruit juice, cocoa beverage, pineapple juice, chicken with gravy, pears, strawberries, beef and vegetables and other assorted food containers. Photo credit: NASA

Eerily similar, no?

My biggest regret

I really wanted to include audio of Apollo astronauts discussing fruitcake while in space on the podcast, but ultimately I was unsuccessful.

The records for the food brought on the Apollo missions are extensive and publicly available, so I knew, for instance, that fruitcake was present on the lunar module of Apollo 11 for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic first steps on the moon. All of the audio from communications on the lunar surface is also available with annotated transcripts, a passion project by a civilian named Eric Jones that NASA itself links to as part of the historical record of the mission. This allowed me to control-f for the word “fruitcake” through all the transcripts of every mission, which I painstakingly did.

Unfortunately, not all of the audio from the on-orbit communications (versus those on the moon’s surface) of the earlier Apollo missions is currently online - though you can still read the transcripts. This meant I couldn’t include my favorite conversation, between astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott, and Russell Schweickart during Apollo 9 in 1969:

194:42:34 Schweickart (onboard): Hey, since there's so many of those fruitcakes left, I may just take another fruitcake. That really tasted good.

194:42:39 McDivitt (onboard): Did it? Man alive, you can have all of mine.

194:42:41 Schweickart (onboard): Really?

194:42:42 Scott (onboard): Hey, give me a bite of it.

194:42:43 Schweickart (onboard): That's a deal.

194:42:47 McDivitt (onboard): Give me a bite out of it; I haven't had one of those things. [Garble] a thousand of them.

194:42:52 Schweickart (onboard): Fruitcake?

194:42:53 McDivitt (onboard): Yes.

194:42:54 Schweickart (onboard): God damn! I'm going to - I'm going to add fruitcake to my diet. Hey, you know, we're getting compatible.

Part of the issue is that the original copies of the Apollo air to ground communications are on analog tapes. I found a record of a 2012 project at UT Dallas, where a group of professors and graduate students were beginning the painstaking process of digitizing these rest of the tapes - you can find some of their work here, though it doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2016. I did email NASA to ask for an update (no reply as of yet).

This wasn’t the only discussion about cake on Apollo 9. The astronauts were informed in advance that a 350 pound cake was being baked in their honor and would be served to them aboard the USS Guadalcanal, the recovery ship responsible for picking them up after their orbital vehicle, the command module Gumdrop, splashed down in the Atlantic. Over the course of the mission, the astronauts frequently muse about the cake:

165:49:05 Schweickart (onboard): Guess what, David. When your face feels better, breathe less skin. Besides that, we like you to look good.

165:49:16 Scott (onboard): Right. You got to be handsome.

165:49:18 Schweickart (onboard): Right. None of this recovering looking like that - We got to stay up here 2 more days just so that we can look good when we eat that 350-pound cake. Right after that, three 8-foot-tall redheads.

165:59:39 McDivitt: Hey, Stu, were, you the fellow who told us about the big cake on the Guadalcanal?

165:59:44 Roosa: Yes, I mentioned that.

165:59:46 McDivitt: Well, ever since you mentioned it, Rusty and Dave haven't stopped talking about it.

165:59:51 Roosa: I sure am sorry about that. Maybe we better send a TWX out there and have them make that a 700 pounder.

176:19:55 McDivitt (onboard): I don't think there's anything on the whole menu I want. Just take whatever is least - least undesirable.

176:20:02 Scott (onboard): That's the way I feel, but it's got to go. Oh! That 350-pound cake! I wonder if it's chocolate?

176:20:08 Schweickart (onboard): I tell you. I don't like cake very much, but that still sounds good. [Garble] a 350-pound pie would interest me more.

176:20:18 Scott (onboard): But chocolate cake with ice cream? Ahh! I could eat and eat and eat.

All in all, the astronauts bring up the cake at least 17 times during the course of their eleven-day mission. Here they are with it:

The Apollo 9 crew prepares to cut the 350-pound cake which was baked on the U.S.S. Guadalcanal in their honor. Left to right, are Astronauts Russell L. Schweickart, David R. Scott, and James A. McDivitt. Looking on at right is Capt. Roy M. Sudduth, commanding officer of the U.S.S. Guadalcanal. Photo credit: NASA.

To be totally honest, it doesn’t look like it weighs 350 pounds to me!

Moving on- I found one, quite degraded, soundbite of Astronaut Jim Lovell describing using the astronaut’s edible toothpaste as a frosting for fruitcake during Apollo 8 (edible, because you can’t spit into a sink in space). Ultimately this clip was so short (and staticky) that it didn't make the cut.

Regretfully, I’ll have to wait until the Apollo 9 audio is eventually available for my dream soundbites as a lover of both space and cake. In the meantime, you can find the air-to-ground communication transcripts for all of the Apollo missions here.

The biggest challenge

Probably the hardest part of scripting the podcast was weaving in real-time news updates regarding Suni and Butch, the astronauts who were until recently “stuck”1 on the ISS. I was ecstatic when Vickie Kloeris, the now-retired former manager of NASA food systems, brought up this tricky situation organically during our interview (you’ll have to listen for that full context!). The week I recorded my narration for the podcast was also the week Suni and Butch were due to return. I ended up having to simply state “as of this date, Suni and Butch are due to return in a matter of days”.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 71 Flight Engineer Suni Williams celebrates her birthday during International Talk Like a Pirate Day aboard the International Space Station. Sitting on the Unity module's gallery is a pair of strawberry cakes for her and crewmates to enjoy. Items are attached to the galley using tape and velcro to keep them from flying away in the microgravity environment. Photo credit: NASA

I watched the launch of the replacement crew live (their vessel would serve as Suni and Butch’s return ship). There is something truly awe-inspiring about seeing the liftoff of a crewed mission - my heart was in my mouth the entire time. I know that the continued existence of the space program can feel problematic when the planet is currently facing so many profound problems. I haven’t entirely squared these feelings myself - all I can say is that I’m aware of the counterarguments but maintain a deep belief in the value of publicly funded space exploration.

Another complication occurred any time I described the proposed timeline for the Artemis mission, which is supposed to be NASA’s upcoming return to the moon. That (along with everything else) depends on the whims of the Trump administration, who have the power to scrap the entire program. NASA has long promised that Artemis will put the first woman and the first person of color on the moon, but considering the fate of the rest of the government’s DEI programs, it seems certain that the objectives of the mission could shift dramatically. In fact, NASA’s website no longer lists putting a female or Black astronaut on the lunar surface as one of Artemis’ stated mission goals. Again, two things can be true: I can understand the limitations of identity politics while also being heartbroken that NASA could rescind this goal. While the agency has said in a statement to media that the removal of the language does not indicate a change in crew assignment, they haven’t yet revealed the selected astronauts for Artemis III, the first of those missions to actually land on the moon’s surface.

Elon is obsessed with Mars, and if he still has Trump’s ear, he might continue to push for that planet instead. I’ve been reading journalist Swapna Krishna’s coverage to help me understand what might happen next. Today, Trump’s pick to head of NASA will testify before Congress. He has reiterated that Mars is the administration’s priority, but hasn’t ruled out using the moon as a stepping stone (which was NASA’s goal all along).

If you’d like to learn more about the history of space food you should check out Vickie Kloeris’ memoir, Space Bites: Reflections of a NASA Food Scientist. To learn more about Cady Coleman’s remarkable career, you can read her recently published memoir, Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change. To see Mary Klicka interviewed on camera, you can watch the 1966 short film “Food For Space Travelers” by the MIT Science Reporter here - her segment begins at 19:27.

NASA astronaut Catherine (Cady) Coleman, Expedition 26 flight engineer, prepares to eat a snack in the Columbus laboratory of the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA

• burnt caramel marble bundt cake (one of my favorite recipes I’ve developed in ages)

• an adaptable upside down cake with a secret ingredient

• a dramatic (but easy) chiffon cake with sugared fruit (very inspired!)

You can sign up here, and use MARBLE15 for 15% off. Sessions are from 6-7:30 pm EST on April 2, 16 and 30. The classes are live on zoom, but copies of the class will be emailed to everyone, so no worries if you can’t make one!

On to the lamb!

Consider the Lamb!

I should preface this by saying that I’m not Catholic. I’m not even lapsed! I was raised in the sort of vague mishmash of religious principles popularized by suburban ex-hippie parents in the 80’s and 90’s. We occasionally visited a Christian church to hear music, celebrated Hanukkah each year with a friend of the family, and rarely, if ever, spoke about God.

My mom was brought up as a Disciple of Christ, which mostly seemed to involve her getting dunked in a pond at the age of thirteen in front of her small Texas congregation. My dad, however - the son of a first generation Polish-American mother and an Irish-American factory foreman - was dutifully raised Catholic. As a kid, I remember peering at his confirmation photo with fascination - his serious gaze, with the little gold cross embossed in the corner of the picture. What was the meaning of this mystical rite that had been documented so carefully in the family album? When my childhood best friend showed me pictures of her own confirmation, I was sick with jealousy. There she was, kneeling by the altar, her cartoonishly large blue eyes closed in serene contemplation, dressed all in white! It was so chic! Always congenial, Kristen hosted a private ritual for me in the wood-paneled living room of her family home. With a tiny cup of grape juice and Ritz crackers, we pantomimed the ancient sacrament, a childish blasphemy I accepted with glee. I have always found myself perversely drawn to the mysticism, the camp, the showmanship of the Catholic Church.

I get the irony of a gay person rhapsodizing about Catholicism- a mostly monstrous organization with a smattering of charitable acts to its name (I dig the socialist nuns). What I’m actually advocating for is a blithe cherry-picking of Catholic ritual to suit my own pleasure. This is a way of life in south Louisiana, and I won’t apologize for it. Each year, I celebrate the feast of Epiphany with king cake, run riot in the streets for Mardi Gras, and select a few chaste habits to maintain for Lent. The season culminates in my favorite holiday of the year: Gay Easter.

Twenty-five years ago, a group of local queers organized the first Gay Easter parade. Almost every year since, drag queens in candy-colored suits and Easter hats ride horse-drawn carriages through the streets of the French Quarter, throwing candy to children, tourists, and various riffraff. Spectators craft enormous bonnets and themed headpieces, or drape themselves in pastel costumes. It’s nominally a charitable fundraiser (proceeds go to provide meals for people living with HIV). At its heart remains the peculiar tension the homosexuals of New Orleans embody so well: an embrace of the decorative artifice of religion, and a puckish fuck-you to a church that wouldn’t have us anyway.

It’s in this spirit that two years ago, I baked my first Gay Easter lamb cake. While the scholarship on the history of lamb cake is a bit thin on the ground, I found this passage in a piece by Anne Bramley that sums it up:

“This is how I feel explaining Easter lamb cake to non-believers. Christians have a god who can turn wine into his blood and bread into his flesh, but this deity is also a lamb. At Easter some people transform the holy trinity of flour, sugar, and butter into a heavy batter, shape it into a small wooly ungulate, bake it Sinai dry, and then bring it to life with a sweet buttercream hide, a coconut fleece, and two licorice jelly beans for eyes. And after feasting on ham and deviled eggs, we, the faithful, cut off its head and serve slices of the body all around, communing with each other and with our ancestors. Not quite what is meant by the Eucharistic dictum “do this in remembrance of me,” but there it is.”

An Easter lamb cake has all my top Catholic trappings: a ceremony of mysterious origin, its form at once twee and blood curdling. Is it a replacement for what would have once been a live lamb sacrifice? Are its roots pagan, a callback to the worship of Oestre and her rites of Spring? No one seems to know!

And what is a gay Easter lamb? All lamb cakes are tinged with horror, but a gay Easter lamb refutes simply being cute. Lean into the macabre with your decoration. Tenderly shape its countenance to be deliberately uncanny. Feel the enormous power of using thousand-year-old religious symbolism as your plaything! This is the magic of the lamb cake. And for god’s sake, don’t worry about it looking good.

I’m including a diagram and some photos below to show how I construct a lamb cake without a lamb cake mold (I haven’t yet bitten the bullet on buying the traditional pan, though now I think I must). You’ll need to click on the photos in the gallery below to see the full image. If you go this route, I’d recommend a sturdy pound cake for the base - you need something that will hold up decently well to being skewered.

Easter is in 39 days. If you make a lamb cake, PLEASE show me.

Before we dive into the recipe, I wanted to talk about something very near and dear to me: the current campaign against trans and queer people, and the broader attacks on federal workers in the US. I know many of us, regardless of where we live, are profoundly concerned about the avalanche of executive orders coming from the White House. If you live in the States, I would like to ask you to make time in your day to contact your reps and let them know that you expect them to protect federal workers, and that we must preserve access to trans healthcare and protect the rights of queer kids in schools.

I won’t pretend I’m not scared (and wishing I had the foresight to marry my wife in a state that has enshrined same-sex marriage into the constitution, unlike Louisiana, which still has a gay marriage ban on the books). I also feel a profound certainty that I deserve to live safely and comfortably here in the south, my home, my favorite place.

That being said, in addition to lightly bullying my Republican senators, I’ve been engaging in massive amounts of my own personal favorite brand of escapism: inhaling Edwardian detective novels like there’s no tomorrow. I’m nearly done with Dorothy Sayers and am actively seeking recommendations for more, so do reach out if you have any favorites!

The following recipe is sponsored by my pals at California Prunes!

I adore a New Orleans-style king cake (and always will), but I leapt at the chance to develop a recipe for its fancier French cousin, the galette des rois. Last year the talented baker Melisa Spence made a prune butter galette with benne seed frangipane, and it sounded so good I needed to try my own hand at it. The prune espresso butter here is inspired by the the classic flavor combination, and I paired it with almond frangipane as a nod to the French tradition.

Traditionally an almond or a coin is hidden inside the galette des rois, and the lucky recipient becomes the king for the day. These days I typically slip my fève under the slice rather than hiding it within, for safety’s sake. I’m the lucky recipient of handmade ceramic beans from the brilliant Michelle Marek, which feel almost too precious for me to use.

Whether you celebrate with a galette des rois, a king cake, bolo-rei, or a rosca de reyes, I hope you have a happy and safe Mardi Gras season.

Prune, Coffee, and Almond Galette des Rois

Note: you can certainly make your own rough puff pastry if you wish - I did, and I adore the results I got from making Natasha Pickowicz’ rough puff recipe from her debut cookbook More than Cake. However, store bought puff works perfectly well too, and certainly makes this more weeknight-friendly. If you do make your own, you’ll need about a pound.

Both the prune butter and the almond frangipane can be made ahead. You will need to bring the frangipane to room temperature before using.

You’re welcome to omit the espresso powder! I like the subtle earthiness it brings but I enjoy it either way. I’d avoid substituting all of the water for coffee - I found it to be a little strong when I tried that avenue myself.

Ingredients:

2 sheets store-bought puff pastry (or homemade, see note)

For the prune butter:

170 grams / ¾ cup (packed) prunes

160 grams / ⅔ cup water

40 grams / 3 tbsp brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon espresso powder

Large pinch salt

For the almond frangipane:

85 grams / 6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature

75 grams / ¼ + 2 tbsp granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

64 grams egg whites (from two eggs)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon almond extract

60 grams / ½ cup almond flour (or finely ground blanched almonds)

10 grams / 1 tbsp + 1 tsp all purpose flour

For the egg wash:

36 grams egg yolk (from two eggs)

A dash of cream or half-and-half

First, make the prune-coffee butter. Combine the prunes, water, brown sugar, vanilla, espresso powder, and salt in a medium non-reactive pot. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar and espresso powder are fully dissolved. Continue to cook for about five minutes, until the prunes are meltingly soft, and remove from the heat. Allow the mixture to cool before tipping it into a small blender or food processor and pureeing it until very smooth. Set aside in the fridge to firm up a little.

Then, make the almond frangipane. Combine the butter, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer (or use a hand mixer). Cream together until the mixture has lightened a little, about three minutes. Add the egg whites, vanilla, and almond extract and continue to mix until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the almond flour and mix, followed by the all purpose flour. Scrape into a small dish and set aside at room temperature.

To make the egg wash, simply stir the remaining egg yolks from the frangipane into a little cream, half-and-half, or water.

To assemble:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper.

If using store-bought puff pastry, follow the instructions on the box to defrost, and keep very cold before rolling out. Roll out each sheet into about an eleven-inch circle. You can use a round of parchment paper as a template to help you cut. Slip each round of puff pastry onto a sheet tray and pop them in the refrigerator to get nice and cold before proceeding.

Take one puff pastry round out and place it on your prepared sheet tray. Brush the edge with a little egg wash and spread the interior with the prune butter, leaving a one-inch border around the edge. Place the tray in your freezer for five minutes to allow the prune butter to firm up.

Remove the tray from the freezer and spread the almond frangipane over the prune butter, remembering to leave the one-inch border around the edge. You can also pipe it, which makes it a little easier not to disturb the prune butter.

Take out the second puff pastry round and carefully place it on top of the bottom layer. Press your fingers into the border to seal. Using the tines of a fork, crimp the border to further seal the galette. Place the whole thing back in the freezer for ten minutes to get very cold.

Remove the galette from the freezer and brush the top with the egg wash. Using a very sharp knife, slice a few decorative vents in the top. Place it in the oven. Bake for twenty minutes before rotating, and continue to bake for another ten minutes. Remove the galette from the oven when it is a deep golden brown (this may take longer in your oven - use the color of the galette to judge). If you have a cooling rack, carefully transfer the galette to the rack using the parchment paper as a sling, and then wiggle the parchment paper out from under - this will keep the bottom crisp.

The galette will keep for up to three days at room temperature. You can also freeze it, unbaked, for several weeks and bake it from frozen.

I talked about this the last go-round, but it seems to me that trend predictions fall into two camps. One method relies on assessing vibes: looking around at micro-trends in creative spaces and guessing which might be more broadly adopted. This tactic relies not on data but intuition. So much of culture is transmuted online, and print media by its nature will always fall a few steps behind. I genuinely believe there are a few chronically online people who have a knack for figuring out which trends are about to blow up. I no longer think I’m one of them.

A big part of that is that I rarely consume short-form video - I have TikTok but almost never open the app (despite a recent desultory attempt to start posting there more frequently). I also shuttered my cake business last year. This means I’m no longer feverishly attuned to cake decorating as a creative practice. I feel more like a detached observer of visual trends in desserts. In general, the whole endeavor feels less meaningful. I also don’t live in a large coastal city, where I might have more opportunity to engage with the work of “global tastemakers” in-person. This isn’t to say that all trends begin in large urban centers (far from it), but you’d be excused from believing so based on the sorts of fads that get picked up by mainstream media.

The second camp in food trend prediction relies on industry data to foretell what will happen next. Last year, I wrote:

“Most trend reporting seems to be driven by hard data - generally consumer polling run by large corporations, or by noting shifts in search terms on Google. I’d argue, however, that this type of reporting is actually responding to trends, rather than predicting them.”

I still tentatively stand by that statement, but I’m also keen, this year, to dig a little deeper. My first exposure to this sort of trend forecasting occurred in 2008, when I read an article by Kim Severson for the New York Times about the rise of salted caramel. These days salted caramel is so widespread as to be a cliche. It’s almost hard to remember there was a time when it still felt fresh. Severson points to this cultural shift occurring when mass market brands adopted the flavor - Haagen Dazs, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart all debuted salted caramel-themed goods in 2008. She writes,

“Salt caramel’s rise as the flavor of the year illuminates the fast flow of food trends in a country that can grab hold of a relatively unknown ingredient like chipotle and move it through a cultural sluice box that ends at McDonald’s.

Something of an overachiever compared with other upstart flavors like asiago cheese and wasabi, the flavor combination made its successful run from rarefied Parisian pastry shops to American big-box stores in about a decade, a relatively short period, according to people who study food trends.”

Severson interviewed an expert, Kara Nielsen, who at the time worked for the Center for Culinary Development in San Francisco - an agency that specializes in developing consumer packaged goods, with clients like Kellogs, Frito-Lay, and Pepperidge Farm. Nielsen describes five stages of adoption for new flavors in the marketplace. They tend to begin in “small ethnic restaurants or fine dining establishments” (Nielsen’s words) before making their way in front of successively larger audiences. Salted caramel has now achieved ubiquity in the flavor marketplace: stage five, the end.

When I was still contemplating my own food trend listicle this past December, I thought about chestnut - I’d just used it for a cookie recipe, as had Nicola Lamb, and I’d seen a flurry of interest in chestnut stuffing recipes around Thanksgiving. A trip to the mall put the kibosh on that. Walking past a Starbucks, I noticed a prominent ad for a new chestnut latte. The flavor had entered what Nielsen described in 2008 as “high stage four”: by no means was it a new trend.

It is, of course, important to point out the colonial overtones of harvesting trends from so-called “ethnic” restaurants or cuisines. I’m guilty of it myself. Last year, I joked that 2024 was finally going to be the year of rice pudding. Of course, rice pudding is a staple food in cuisines across the globe. How can it be “in” if it never left? It might be more accurate to say that an ingredient becomes broadly “trendy” when it is no longer in danger of potentially alienating a white audience. Large food corporations don’t take many risks. By the time Haagen Dazs debuted a rum tres leches ice cream in 2019, the market had been well tested by smaller food businesses with less overhead and more flexibility.

Food trend prediction might seem frivolous, but it can have profound social and economic effects. Alicia Kennedy wrote of the fallout of the quinoa fad in her piece “Climate Nausea”, which draws a line between quinoa’s coronation as a superfood (also, ironically, in 2008) and the subsequent market collapse, which left Bolivia’s agricultural economy in ruins. She writes,

“The little interests, the cool factor, these have real implications when they lead to overproduction and changes to age-old agricultural practices. How cool can tinned fish or mountains of butter be before the bottom falls out? This “taste,” this “cool factor”—these are not neutral.”

Worth pointing out, too, is the way that MAHA (Make America Healthy Again, the movement spearheaded by RFK Jr and fearmongering moms across the country) is shaping food trends, with raw milk being the most obvious example. I’m morbidly curious how this will continue to shake out, especially with the rising pseudoscientific mistrust of preservatives and seed oils. I find it chilling that more and more food brands are pledging to go seed-oil free (like Sweetgreen and True Food Kitchen) based not on scientific evidence, but public pressure.

With all that being said, what are food and dining industry groups predicting for 2025? Below is a roundup. My biggest takeaway is how dated some of these ideas already feel, the heat factor of each trend already beginning to cool once it reaches the level of corporate notice - like hot honey, which you can get at the airport, for crying out loud. Also widespread are categories so vast they begin to lose their meaning as “trends” - like the idea of Southeast Asian cuisine as a trend, which crops up multiple times.

I should also note that most of the major food media outlets - like the NYT, Food and Wine, and the Food Network - used these lists to build out much of their own 2025 predictions. From my perspective, they seem to cherry-pick pithy forecasts, like “yuzu”, and elide the parts of these lists that could make you feel a little queasy to repeat in print, like “global flavors”. I’d also argue that we lose some context when the prediction is divorced from its source. It’s easy to see why a group like the Specialty Foods Association would promote certain ready-to-eat processed foods as a trend, especially when they then include examples of their own member’s products. Ditto with Baldor, whose prediction list could double as a catalog. For the sake of brevity, I didn’t include all the predictions in each list for beverages, so if that’s your special interest you might want to dive into the links.

Last, I’ll point out that only three of these lists included methodologies.

The industry group The Specialty Foods Association is a non profit that represents 3000+ CPG (consumer packaged good) food brands. They predict:

• Snacks for dinner (in a very Miranda Priestly voice: groundbreaking).

• “Global” ready-to-eat processed foods, like simmer sauces, frozen dumplings, and pre-made pupusas.

• “Chef-driven” meal kits.

• “Functional” foods, including those that include mushrooms or plants with purported mental health benefits, like ashwagandha (do these align with MAHA?).

• Chilis, especially ones with a mild, smoky flavor.

• Vinegars, including “drinking” vinegars and infused vinegars (hello, Tart Vinegar!).

• “Natural” sweeteners like honey and maple.

• Oil-based hot sauces, like chili crisp and salsa macha (the latter is mentioned in multiple lists).

• Black garlic.

• Lavender (would love to see the data on this as it feels super cliche to me).

• Flavored cheeses.

The Good Housekeeping Institute (self-described as a “consumer product testing and advocacy center’) predicts:

• High-protein foods will continue to reign.

• “Global flavors” and “international snacks” (I know, I know).

• “Functional” mocktails.

• Luxury produce (like the Oishi berries and pink pineapples).

• “Next level water” - basically, water with additional purported health benefits (i.e. the Vitamin Water rebrand).

• “Better baby food”.

• Sourdough in products other than bread (such as crackers or pasta).

• Organ meats ☹️

• Upcycled food products, made from trimmings or things that would otherwise be thrown away. I’ve seen a few products in my local Whole Foods made from the byproduct of oat milk production - are their other widespread examples, and can actually claim market share?

• Personalized nutrition (we’ve seen this in the haircare and vitamin markets already).

Did you know Whole Foods has a “Trend Council”? It’s made up of “a collective of more than 50 Whole Foods Market team members ranging from foragers and buyers to culinary experts”. This seems vibey but I’m including it anyway since I assume they have lots of opportunity to observe shopping habits. The Whole Foods Market’s Trends Council predicts:

• “International snacking” - they give the example of popcorn with, you guessed it, “global flavors”.

• Dumplings (not mad).

• Crunchy textures, with an emphasis on dehydrated fruits and candy as well as salad toppers.

• “Enhanced” water.

• Tea, both stand-alone and as a flavor additive.

• Compostable packaging.

• Sustainable booze.

• Sourdough CPG products (other than bread).

• “Plant based aquatic ingredients” which is a mouthful of a phrase when they really just mean seaweed (sea moss gummies are one example).

• Protein-boosted products (the emphasis on these seems to stem from the popularity of GLP-1’s, whether they say so explicitly or not).

The Michelin Guide sought input from their inspectors for this list. They predict:

• “Elevated” plant based dining.

• “Unusual toppings and ingredients” which feels impossibly broad, though they mostly seem to mean putting caviar on unexpected things.

• “Flame cooked flavors” i.e. charcoal grilled food…?

• “A fresh take on southeast Asian”. They don’t say “elevated” here (they probably know better by now) but that’s the vibe they’re putting out.

• Chinese cuisine - they refer to a “Chinese culinary renaissance”.

• More eco-friendly or regenerative practices in restaurants.

• “Global treats”. They give tacos as an example. Quote: “humble street food classics will also receive the accolades they merit”.

• Drink pairings (that aren’t wine), including cocktails and NA options.

I found this following report from a mention in Food and Wine. The NEXT Flavor Report “is a first-of-its-kind compilation of third-party market research and proprietary data gathered by the Rubix Foods NEXT Flavor Network – a collective of influential taste-making social media creators with Gen Z audiences – who have helped us unveil the unfiltered, unbiased and real-time cravings of this highly sought after generation who will reshape the flavor trends and strategies of restaurant menus in 2025”. You might laugh but this is the one of only three reports I reviewed that included a methodology, and they have the largest sample size (they interviewed over 15,000 young people). They predict:

• “Complex heat” (so not just spicy - the flavor needs to have depth, and it can’t be too hot).

• Fruits like dragon fruit, guava, and passionfruit.

• Floral infused flavors like hibiscus, lavender (!), and cherry blossom.

• Sweet/Spicy combo flavors like hot honey.

• Salty/Sweet flavors like brown butter, caramel pretzel, and salted maple.

• CPG food brand mashups (I hate to report that the Cinnamon Coast Crunch Hormel bacon collab is an example).

• Variations on the “core four” Gen z sauces: barbecue, buffalo, mustard, and ranch (chimichurri ranch was one prediction that made it to the NYT roundup).

• Unexpected food combinations: quote, “Freaky Mashups”. They predict we’ll continue to find pickle flavor in unexpected places - “Gen Z is passionate about pickles”.

• “Worldwide” flavors / “Global” cuisine (again!!!). I will note that they predict a substantial increase of interest in saba of all things and they reiterate that black garlic will be trending.

• “Turning items into flavors” - like a beverage becoming a sauce (Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce was one example), or breakfast-inspired flavors like pancake and everything bagel cropping up in snacks and beverages.

The National Restaurant Association, that bastion of union-busting we love to hate, issued a trend report based on a survey of industry professionals on what’s “hot, not hot, or an emerging trend”. They didn’t include the number of people who responded to the survey in their methodology. They predict:

• sustainability (this feels performative, no?).

• Korean, Vietnamese, and Filipino cuisine, and Southeast Asian cuisine more broadly.

• Honey and hot honey.

• “Functional” mushrooms, including mushroom-infused beverages.

• Pineapple, tamarind, and ube.

• Fermented and pickled foods.

• Spicy maple (hot honey’s Canadian cousin entering the chat).

• Miso (can someone build me a computer program to analyze how many recipes were developed with “miso” in the title in the last 6 months? I get it, its delicious!).

• Matcha.

• “Wellness drinks”.

• Smaller, more streamlined menus (I am fine with this).

• A “macro trend” they isolated is an emphasis on the value of a meal (another thousand fast casual concepts take flight).

Baldor Foods, a specialty food distributor based in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic. Their report seems to be mostly based on recent sales trends. They predict:

• Climate sensitive and regenerative produce.

• Yuzu and Sudachi citrus (hi Yuzoco!).

• French food (they point to a 40% increase in sales in the cut of beef commonly used in steak frites).

• “Designer produce” with another nod to Oishi berries, as well as limited-edition lettuce crops.

• Fig leaf (I resoundingly agree here).

• Cacao Barry’s Extra Brut Cocoa Powder, which they report has seen a 50% increase in sales. Can anyone in NYC explain to me why?

• “80’s Decadence Revival” including caviar, again. Is this just partying like the world is going to end? Because it feels like partying like the world is going to end.

• Tropical fruit, with another nod to dragonfruit.

• Pistachios.

• Jackfruit as a meat substitute.

• Spicy foods, like Carolina Reapers.

Of all these, the list of Baldor foods with the greatest sales growth is the most interesting to me, including:

• Marigold Flower Blossoms (164% percentage growth).

• Hawaiian Basil (129% percentage growth).

• Finger Limes (113% percentage growth).

• Cotton Candy Grapes (88% percentage growth).

• Goldenberries (70% percentage growth).

• Kumquats (65% percentage growth).

• Lamb Roasts (61% percentage growth).

The Carbonate Group Hospitality Trends Report, which the NYT leaned on heavily in their own coverage, is a collaboration between marketing firm Carbonate and the SF-based consulting firm AF + Co (they’ve been publishing their report for 17 years). They predict:

• Pistachios (they call it their flavor of the year).

• Kataifi (as seen in the viral Dubai chocolate bar, which also features pistachio).

• Freezer martinis (these are just martinis stored in the freezer? idk).

• “Simple seafood” like raw bars and fish preparations with a very light touch.

• Croissant adaptations (like croissant dough as a container for other foods: an “adaptable platform”).

• Conchas (I can’t help but wonder if Teresa Finney and Comadre Panaderia have something to do with this).

• Self-serve ramen concepts.

• Japanese and Korean convenience food more broadly.

• Asian late-night dessert cafe concepts.

• Turkish cuisine.

• Yemeni coffee shops (there’s a heavy emphasis on NA third places in this report). They also point to Yemeni honeycomb bread which I had on my last visit to Detroit (it’s DELICIOUS).

• Miso in coffee (sure!)

Finally, a somewhat niche food and bev economic trend report developed by FLIP, the Food Liability Insurance Program, who I used to buy business insurance from when I still sold food. They have long list of sources included at the end, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but in their methodology they indicate they only surveyed around 250 people. Their list is maybe less about trend prediction and more a presentation of data from 2024 - I suppose the idea is that those patterns will continue. Take this as you will! They predict:

• People will continue to spend more on dining out than ever, and eat more of their meals outside the home.

• Affordability will be the main concern in dining out, and casual dining will be more popular than fine dining.

• People will continue to hate QR code menus.

• Honey / hot honey will be popular.

• Ditto Southeast Asian cuisine (again).

• Guests will want to be able to customize their menu options.

• Mexican food will be ever more popular.

• Food cost will be a primary challenge for small business owners (shocking, right?). Quote: “Food prices are up 28% since 2019”.

• Notwithstanding the optimistic predictions of tech reporters, food business owners will be hesitant to implement AI tools.

• Despite having some of the tightest profit margins, baking continues to be a growth industry in food.

• “Natural” sweeteners, whole grains and ancient grains, sourdough and vegan options will continue to be popular, and customers will still seek out wheat-free options.

• States will continue to loosen restrictions on cottage food.

• The gourmet pet food and snacks industry will continue to grow.

If you made it this far, you deserve a treat. My one vibey trend prediction for 2025? Soft pretzels.

This newsletter will be quite short. I’ll have more to say soon, but for now I wanted to let you know that the Mardi Gras season begins today, January 6th, on the feast of Epiphany. There will be a parade honoring Joan of Arc in the French Quarter tonight, one that I imagine will be more somber than in years past as we grapple with the terrible attack that occurred on New Year’s Day. The city has started a fund for the victims - if you are able to donate, you can find more information here.

As ever, I have an online king cake class available during the months of Mardi Gras. Newsletter subscribers can get a 10% discount with the code PARADE. You can find the class here. It comes with a video and five bonus recipes for different styles of king cake, the sweet braided bread that we only break during the Mardi Gras season.

Being a part of the culture here in this city is one of the greatest joys of my life, in good times and bad.

Take care,

Bronwen

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Today in a fit of holiday chaos I bring you:

• a printable template for making a zine from a piece of 8.5” x 11” paper

• a new class

• a mildly unhinged recipe

Let’s dive in!

If you read my gift guide, you might remember my plan to gift my niece a zine-making kit for Christmas. I ended up making a printable template that she could fold into a little book, customized with her name, and put it in a box with stamps and stickers. Here’s a version of what I made, with a blank space so you can write whatever name you like. You’ll need a printer that can print a double-sided page - just fold the paper longways, cut along the dotted line, and staple the book together.

I find it’s best to draw on it with colored pencils or crayons versus markers, which tend to bleed through the thinner printer paper I used.

In case you missed it: I have a new class available in my online store! This one is all about how to securely stack tiered cakes, and it comes with a comprehensive video tutorial and a suite of 9 recipes that you can mix and match. I call it Tiny Tiers, because practicing with a small tiered cake is so much easier than trying to stack a massive cake your first time. The finished cake serves around 26 people, so if you want to gift your friend an elopement or baby shower cake next year, you’ll have all the skills you need. Click here to see more about the class (including a list of recommended tools), or click here to gift it to someone else.

I also added new recipes and a Yule Log tutorial to my dome cake class just in time for the solstice. If you’ve already bought the class, you should have gotten the recipes in your inbox - shoot me an email if you don’t see them!

In case you can’t tell, I had an absolute blast writing this next recipe. The following is a paid partnership with California Prunes (but to be clear I did pitch prune whip and they bravely allowed me to follow my dreams).

Justice for Prune Whip

You’ve seen it: on social media, a recipe card or advertisement from the 1950’s will make the rounds to a collective shudder of revulsion. A cloudy tuna salad molded into a bulbous shape and adorned with black olives, contorted hot dogs in aspic, or pureed ham loaves topped with mealy hard boiled eggs, these images are always depicted in fuzzy halftone, a comforting reminder that these dishes remain firmly in the past.

Folks who know I work with California Prunes will often come across one iconic example of this phenomenon and send it to me - a towering glass of prune whip, a mauve mixture flecked with brown and topped with a rosette of cream. The subtext is always the same. Get a load of this??? Can you believe it?

I am here to tell you: I do believe it! Prune whip is actually delicious. I’m not talking about that sad weeping mess of soggy baked meringue and pureed prunes beloved of Dwight Eisenhower, but instead a far more elegant dessert. Instead, whole prunes are simmered until very soft, whizzed into a velvety prune butter, and folded into whipped cream. An intrepid housewife might have once substituted pureed prune baby food as a time-saver, but we certainly don’t have to bring that particular hack along with us into the future. Nor do we need to top it with corn chips, as a vintage Frito’s advertisement suggests.

My own adaptation is more contemporary Paris than 1950’s Des Moines. I cook the prunes down in Armagnac and fold soft mascarpone together with the cream, adding lots of salt and vanilla on the way. I couldn't decide what to call it. Salted Vanilla Prune Mousse? Prune and Armagnac Cream? Neither felt quite right. So, I’ll call it Prune Whip, and I dare you to try it. If you abstain from booze, you can substitute the liquid for earl gray tea for an equally chic version (London Fog Prune Whip, anyone?).

Prune Whip

I piped this cream into decorative glasses for serving. You could top with shaved chocolate or a dusting of cocoa powder for a chic finish. Makes about 5 cups or 6 servings - or cut the recipe in half for a smaller crowd. This may seem like a lot of armagnac, but I promise the result isn’t too booze-forward.

227 grams / 1 packed cup prunes

113 grams / ½ cup armagnac, brandy, or rum

113 grams / ½ cup water

54 grams / ¼ cup brown sugar

454 grams / 2 cups heavy cream

227 grams / 8 ounces mascarpone

100 grams / ½ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla paste (or extract)

Large pinch salt

Combine the prunes, armagnac, water, and sugar in a medium non reactive pot. Place over high heat and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Cook the prunes at a rolling simmer for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool to just warm.

Using a small blender or food processor, puree the prunes and the liquid together with a pinch of salt until very smooth. Allow the prune puree to cool to room temperature.

Combine the cream, mascarpone, granulated sugar, vanilla paste, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on low speed in the beginning and gradually raise to medium speed until the cream holds soft peaks. You want to take care not to over-whip it or it might become grainy - err on the side of it being a little loose, as it will firm up when chilled. Taste and add a little more salt if you like.

Fold the prune puree into the whipped cream, using a light touch so as not to overmix it - you want it a little streaky. Pipe or scoop it into your serving glasses immediately. Keep chilled until ready to serve. Alternatively, you can chill the prune whip in a large container and scoop it into glasses later - it firms up as it cools and is capable of holding a quenelle.

Liz’s cookie box

Last Christmas, however, I was struck by the urge to develop my own Christmas cookie arsenal. I’m influenced as ever by my friend Tim Mazurek, who takes his cookies very, very seriously. I love Tim’s essay about them, particularly the notion that Christmas cookies are, against the odds, a stubbornly secular tradition:

“For this non-Christian who loves Christmas, the modern season is most fully encapsulated in the holiday cookie platter, a generous fantasia where butter cookies decorated like angels mingle with rugelach and rum balls. The cookie platter doesn’t care about your religion, or lack of one. It welcomes everyone and promises that you’ll find something you like.”

As a fellow non-Christian who loves Christmas, I’ll think about this passage every season, perhaps forever. It inspired me to develop three holiday cookies last year - a crunchy, wheaty espresso digestive, a chewy panettone cookie chock full of dried fruit and topped with pearl sugar, and a tangy pistachio cranberry bar (that’s incidentally vegan). If you make only one, I can still say the digestive is my favorite.

This year, I have two for you: a chestnut sandwich creme and maple pecan panforte. To be totally honest they are both a little finicky to put together, but I think they are some of my best work. The chestnut cookie requires you to find peeled, pre-cooked chestnuts, which are often sold in little vac-sealed packets or jars. This might strike you as difficult to find, but I sourced them at Costco, World Market, Whole Foods, and Wal-Mart this year, and you can always try online. I’ve never roasted and shelled my own chestnuts but it sounds like too much work!

If you’re not familiar with panforte, I often think of it as if fruitcake was a confection - a sweet, chewy, nutty slice, redolent with winter spices. I had it for the first time when I worked for Michelle Polzine in San Francisco ages ago, who would serve it on cheese plates. I think it works equally well in a Christmas cookie box, and it keeps for ages. Traditionally made with honey and almonds, I’ve substituted maple syrup and pecans to give it a distinctly North American edge. I want to enjoy it with a glass of amaro soon.

Without further ado: the recipes. You can click the links below for printer-friendly versions or scroll down to see them complete with pictures.

Maple Pecan Panforte (click through to print)

Chestnut Sandwich Cremes (click through to print)

Maple Pecan Panforte

Makes about thirty-two portions

This version may offend the Italian traditionalists, but if living in New Orleans has taught me anything, it is that Italian-Americans (and Creole Italians in particular) make magic when they adapt their culinary traditions to what is available where they currently live.

I bake my panforte in an 8” square baking pan rather than the traditional round because I think it makes it easier to portion into neat rectangles for gifting. I have a square pan with a removable bottom which makes removing the cooled panforte considerably easier - if you don’t have a similar pan, then I would recommend a 9” round springform. Many panforte recipes feature an addition of melted chocolate, but I found that it muted the maple flavor. I add just a tablespoon each of cocoa powder and cocoa nibs instead. I also add a touch of corn syrup to prevent the maple syrup from crystalizing as it cooks. You could substitute glucose if you have it.

Judging the “doneness” of a cooked panforte can be tricky, because it will still feel quite molten when you remove it from the oven, and firm up as it cools. I would err on the side of underdone than over, as a too-firm panforte could break a tooth. I allow my own to cure completely overnight before portioning. If it still feels a bit sticky or soft when you go to divvy it up, you can pop it in the freezer for a few hours, cut it into neat slices, and let it come to room temperature. You’ll want to cut it with a sharp serrated knife, using short sawing motions to neatly slice through the pecans, revealing an appealing terrazzo of fruit and nuts.

A last note - I would recommend sticking to the ratio of dates I’ve included here. A version I made with more dates turned out far too sweet. I’ve also included imperial measurements, though I recommend you stick to the weights, as dried fruit and nuts can vary so much in volume when piled in a measuring cup.

Ingredients:

188 grams / two cups whole pecans, toasted

155 grams / 1 cup dried figs, chopped

113 grams / a packed ½ cup dates, chopped

50 grams / a scant ½ cup candied orange peel, chopped

1 tablespoon cocoa nibs

90 grams / ¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon five spice powder

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

200 grams / ⅔ cup minus one teaspoon maple syrup

164 grams / ¾ cup plus one tablespoon granulated sugar

22 grams / 1 tablespoon corn syrup

28 grams / 2 tablespoons butter

A couple tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Prepare your pan by spraying the heck out of it with pan spray - I use Pam. Then line the bottom with parchment paper and spray again. I use an extra long piece of parchment so that I have a sling to help pull the finished panforte out of the pan.

Combine your pecans, cocoa nibs, chopped dates, figs, and orange peel in a bowl. In another bowl combine the flour, cocoa, salt, and spices and whisk to combine. Toss the dried fruit and nuts in the dry ingredients, taking care that all the pieces of dried fruit are adequately separated. Place this bowl near the stove, and set the butter nearby so it's close to hand.

In a small non-reactive pot, combine the maple syrup, corn syrup, and sugar. Cook the syrup mix over medium heat, stirring gently with a heat proof spatula, until the sugar is dissolved. Using a candy thermometer or an instant-read thermometer, continue to cook the syrup until it hits 240 degrees - this should take about a minute and a half from when the syrup begins to boil. Pause for a beat so that the syrup can carry to about 243 degrees, then turn off the heat and add the butter, followed by the dried fruit mixture. Stir it vigorously until it is well combined - it will feel quite thick. Scrape the mixture into your prepared pan. I like to use a greased square of parchment paper to press the mixture into an even layer, though you could use gloved hands if you like. It will be very thick, and the panforte mix will cool rapidly and won’t be too tricky to handle.

Place the panforte in the oven and bake for forty minutes. When you remove it, it will still feel soft in the middle and may be bubbling lightly at the edges - it will firm up a lot as it cools. I like to let it cool for about twenty minutes in the pan, and then take a sharp knife or offset spatula and run it around the edge of the pan to separate it from the sides. You can then carefully flip it out onto a clean work surface. It may still feel a little sticky and soft - this is normal. You don’t want to let it cool completely in the pan, as this will make it difficult to unmold. Carefully peel off the parchment paper from the bottom of the panforte. Sprinkle the panforte with the confectioner’s sugar, rubbing it into the surface, and let cool completely. Allow it to cure overnight before portioning (or freeze it for a little while if you’re in a rush). You can store it wrapped tightly in plastic wrap or beeswax-coated cloth for several months at cool room temperature.

Chestnut Sandwich Cremes

Makes about 24 sandwich cookies

The flavor profile of these cookies is very simple, but the result is magical. Brown butter shortbread is rolled thin and baked until crisp, then filled with a soft and nutty chestnut cream. When eaten fresh, you get all the textural contrast between the crunchy sables and the rich filling, but I almost prefer them when they’ve sat overnight and everything melts together in your mouth. I tinkered with this recipe quite a bit to get the textures right, and by the time I was finished I could not be bothered to reverse engineer this recipe back to imperial measurements. I only offer this recipe in grams (it’s worth it).

Pre-cooked and peeled chestnuts aren’t appealing as-is, but when simmered until very soft in a rum simple syrup and blended with butter and salt, the starchy chestnuts transform into a velvety ganache-like texture with a flavor that's difficult to describe. People sometimes say they taste like sweet potatoes, but they remind me more of sweet boiled peanuts (complimentary). Fair warning: the recipe for the chestnut cream below makes twice as much as you need. I found when I tried to make smaller amounts that it was difficult to blend. You need a certain volume of material to “catch” the blades of small food processors, and the remaining chestnut cream freezes well, anyway. Use the leftovers to spread on french toast, put on the side of a cheese plate, or add a little egg white and bake it up like a frangipane. The French even use creme de marrons, the paste made from broken bits of candied chestnuts, as a mix-in to their breakfast yogurt.

A note on the brown butter shortbread: you’ll need to brown butter for this recipe (obviously), but different types of butter have different water contents, and the finished weight will vary. To get around this, you should brown a stick of butter and then make up the weight with uncooked butter until you get to 170 total grams. There are more details below.

Brown Butter Shortbread Ingredients:

170 grams butter

85 grams granulated sugar

255 grams all purpose flour

½ teaspoon plus ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or a dash of vanilla paste

Confectioner’s sugar, for sprinkling

Place 112 grams of butter in a non reactive pot and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about five minutes, or until the butter solids have browned and taken on a nutty aroma. Meanwhile, set the bowl of a stand mixer on a scale and tare it. When the butter is deeply browned, scrape it into the bowl of the mixer and add a chunks of cold butter, a little at a time, until it reaches 170 grams in weight. At this point, the cold butter will have cooled the brown butter down considerably, but we still will wait until the mixture has reached room temp before proceeding. You can speed up this process by placing the mixing bowl in the fridge and giving the butter a little stir every now and then until it’s cooled to a pliable (but not liquidy) consistency.

At this point, add the sugar and cream the butter/sugar mixture together with a paddle attachment for about one minute. You don’t want the creamed butter and sugar to be too light and fluffy - we rely on undermixing it slightly to achieve the shortbread's fine-grained, crunchy texture. After a minute, add the flour and salt and mix just to combine. Add the milk and vanilla and finish mixing by hand until a soft dough has formed.

Immediately roll out your shortbread dough. I like to roll it out between a silicon mat and plastic wrap, obviating the need to use any additional flour (and risking toughening the shortbread). You can also roll it out between two sheets of parchment. The ultimate goal is a uniform sheet of shortbread just under a quarter inch in height. Slip the shortbread onto a half-sheet tray and refrigerate (or freeze) until firm.

Punch out your cookie rounds. You’ll want to use a cutter between 1½ and 1¾ inches in diameter. I like to take half my rounds and punch a cute shape out of the center, like you would with a linzer cookie, but you don’t have to. You can re-roll your scraps once, or even twice if you’re careful not to over mix it.

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Arrange your shortbread rounds on two sheet trays - you can place them pretty close together, as they won’t spread much. Bake for 13-15 minutes, rotating the trays front to back and top to bottom halfway through, until the cookies are pale golden brown.

Once the cookies have cooled, sprinkle the confectioner’s sugar on the “top” halves.

Chestnut cream ingredients:

150 grams water

150 grams sugar

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon rum

1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or a dash of vanilla paste

Heavy pinch kosher salt

8 ounces / 226 grams peeled, pre-cooked chestnuts

56 grams butter, cold and cut into chunks

Combine the water, sugar, rum, vanilla, and salt in a small non-reactive pot and warm over medium heat until the sugar is fully dissolved. Add the chestnuts and simmer them for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are very soft. Use a heatproof spatula to smash the chestnuts against the side of the pot until they’re all broken up.

The chestnut puree before adding the butter.

When the sugary syrup has reduced until quite thick and the chestnuts are all soft and broken, scrape the mixture into a small food processor or blender, like a Magic Bullet or even a large spice grinder (I achieved this successfully in three different appliances). Puree the soft chestnuts until they are very fine and nearly smooth. Add the cold butter and continue to blend until the butter is fully melted and the chestnut cream is even smoother. If you need to, you can add a dribble of water or rum to thin it out. Taste the mixture and add a little more salt if you like. Allow to cool fully to room temperature.

To assemble

When the brown butter shortbread is fully cooled, take the bottom half of your cookie sandwiches and pipe a generous dollop of chestnut cream on them. Top them with their confectioners-sugar dusted tops. The cookies keep at room temperature for up to three days.

I come here, bruised and battered by American electoral politics, personal grief, and generational ennui, with a gift guide. Shopping won’t heal me, but connecting with others will, and so I’ve focused on presenting ideas for small, mostly secondhand gifts and experiences that will allow you to avoid black Friday. Several are free or relatively cheap.

Here are few articles and newsletters that have shaped how I’ve developed this guide:

• Corinne Fay’s breakdown of how refusing beauty standards (and the spending that accompanies them) can be a political statement

• On Loving My Clothes With Stains and Holes by Isabel Slone, on embracing flaws in search of a truly sustainable wardrobe. I’ve also been entranced lately by the Instagram account for The Seam, a UK-based service that meticulously mends high-end clothing. If someone has a stain they can’t get out, the service will cover it with tasteful embroidery. In this spirit, I’ve been thinking about opening myself up to giving gifts that may not be in perfect condition. 

• The Gumshoe shopping newsletter by Harling Ross, which first led me down the rabbit hole of seeking vintage monogrammed items on eBay and Etsy. Ross finds wonderful secondhand home accessories (though nearly all of her fashion recs are for straight or mid-sized people, for what that’s worth). 

On to the gift guide!

One quick note: when second hand shopping for the holidays online, I always set my filter on Etsy and eBay to only show me stores in the United States - both to save money, and to ensure my gift will arrive on time. If you’re based elsewhere, you might choose your own home country. I’ve also noticed that if you “favorite” an item on Etsy and wait a few days, you may receive a modest discount code from the shop. 

Free or Exceptionally Cheap

A playlist

I’m recycling this from last year’s gift guide as it remains one of my favorite ideas. Bonus points if you gear it towards a specific activity your loved one undertakes regularly: folding laundry, writing, commuting. My wife made me a playlist for my cake decorating classes that I listen to regularly. 

Babysitting or Caretaking

One of the best gifts my wife and I received recently was the offer of two close pals to sit with my father-in-law one evening so we could go to a concert. They dispensed meds and watched movies with him so we could have a night out - so simple and effective. Make up a handmade card to give to your friend as a gift certificate, and perhaps consider following up with the occasional reminder text. 

A Meal Train

We organized a meal train recently for a friend who had a baby, and when my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly, our friends turned right back around and organized one for us. An endless cycle of tupperware exchanging hands, one that made us feel truly cared for during an exceptionally difficult time. There are a couple free websites that make it easy for folks to sign up to take meal shifts - we used Give in Kind, which also allows you to volunteer to run errands or undertake other household chores. If you have a friend who you anticipate having a rough holiday season for whatever reason, you could gently reach out and ask if a meal train would help (and check in about allergies and food preferences). 

Our own meal train was set for every other day, which allowed us to eat through leftovers at a mellow pace. If the item can be frozen for later or delivered in a recycled jar that your friend won’t feel the need to return, all the better. 

A Zine

I’ve been thinking a lot about zines since the baker and writer Teresa Finney announced she was producing a limited run of recipe zines filled with hits from her cottage bakery, At Heart Panadería. How charming would it be to make your own zine, filled with your favorite recipes - or heirloom family recipes - and gift it to your loved ones? The Creative Independent has a great zine-making guide and there’s a kid friendly tutorial here that looks cute as well. I think I’m going to put together a zine-making kit for one of my nieces for Christmas this year - she’s been really into making her own books lately.

Mid-Price

Cabbage Ware

In the midst of the Laila Gohar-inspired surrealism renaissance, I’ve got trompe l’oeil and maximalist tablescapes on the brain. The lacquered-lettuce chandeliers of the artist Chloe Wise reminded me of a more humble (and affordable) alternative: cabbage ware, the retro dishes meant to look like broad leaves of brassicas. You can readily find them by searching for the term “cabbage ware” on the larger second hand sites. Another term often used is “Bordallo Pinheiro”, a Portuguese company that has produced the vegetal goods for well over a century. Here is a vase for $34.15, a condiment tray for $21.95, a creamer + saucer for $44.99, and a soup tureen for $39.99. A large serving platter would look gorgeous as a base for a big salad or crudites - here’s one, another, yet another, and yet another, ranging in price from $31.45 to $95. 

A Bird Book

For all of us who desperately need to go outside and touch grass: a field guide to the birds of your region. Secondhand, good-condition copies abound on Thriftbooks and Abebooks. I’m particularly fond of the Peterson guide for its beautiful illustrations. Prices range from $3.50 to $18.89. 

A Brooch

If I were a fashion writer, I’d want to talk about the return of brooches, for any age or gender. I’m still barely moving out of my all-black comfort zone, but I do love a statement piece of jewelry to punch up a look and make me feel dressier. I only ever wear costume jewelry (I’d just lose the real thing) - here are some vintage pieces I love: this curved, lacy gold-toned wing ($35), this dramatic flower ($24), this golden hand pictured below ($16), this leaf cluster ($19.20), two vaguely military inspired brass emblem here ($35) and here ($37), or this brooch that sort of looks like coral ($49.99). Or how about this somewhat haunting one depicting a man among the ruins ($15)? To find these, I looked up “mid-century modern brooch” or “brutalist brooch” (after the art movement). If you’re Canadian, this dramatic copper and brass pin ($44.87) is located in Calgary. 

If your pal is still in the clutches of coquette, I might also direct you towards vintage metallic bow brooches, which could be strung on a length of black velvet ribbon and worn as a necklace. If you prefer your brooches to be more delicate or subtle, you can also explore the search term “tie pin”. And if I had more money than sense, I’d buy this Etruscan Revival mourning brooch ($1945). 

A Vintage Playboy

Obviously not kid-friendly, but a friend gave me a Playboy from the month and year I was born and it’s a mind-boggling time capsule - the articles! The advertisements! I found this one from my wife’s birth month and it includes an “exclusive interview” with Yasir Arafat. My own birth month features cover star Joan Collins and a piece by Hunter S. Thompson. It’s easy to forget that you really could have read them just for the articles. Prices are generally around 10 bucks. I’d stick with eBay to find these - just search the birth month and year + “vintage playboy”. 

A Fondue Set

Ok so this is maybe not a gift for your pal with a tiny apartment but hear me out - even if you only use it once a year, fondue is really fun! You can buy an unused, still-in-box vintage fondue set for $30. There are scores of second hand examples on eBay in fun primary colors that would look really cute on display. Last year, my family cozied up on the couch with a pot of fondue, a platter of toasted bread, parboiled potatoes and cauliflower, and a crisp green salad - it was one of the most delicious holiday dinners we’ve had in recent memory. You could even include a vintage fondue book and a gift certificate to a cheese shop to round it out. 

For friends who may not have the space for a full kit, you can buy the fondue forks separately, or try searching for the term “vintage cocktail pick” or “vintage cheese pick”- you’ll see cute, reusable skewers for olives or appetizers. I like these ones set with abalone ($20), this pewter version with its own holder ($40.50) or these food-themed ones ($57.71). And have you ever seen a cheese mouse ($35.99)?

A Tulipiere

How frivolous yet lovely to develop a vase for one particular flower: the tulipiere was originally designed to grow tulips but is now generally used to fan them to their best advantage. They would be beautiful with any bloom, in my opinion. Upscale versions can get very expensive but I found this pretty blue and white pair for $55, this slightly odd-looking (but in a cool way) milk glass piece for $58, this leaf-painted version for $33.30, this pink and green one for $75, or this artichoke vase for $39. This one kind of looks like a tissue box ($36.70), but in a way I dig? If you want to see more rectangular versions, just look up “flower brick”. This one is probably too expensive at $100 but I like its painted seagulls!

A Handmade Scarf

This might be the most niche of my suggestions, but I recently found this pattern ($9.00) for a handmade hood-scarf hybrid from Merchant & Mills and I think it’s so chic. If you’re handy with a sewing machine you could make it in a day, and it takes less than a meter of total fabric- they recommend midweight wool, corduroy, or quilted jacquard. Etsy has tons of shops specializing in deadstock and vintage fabric remnants. If I were allowed to buy more fabric right now, I’d buy this mustard corduroy ($19.55/yard), this red velvet ($16.82/yard), this lovely plaid (12.98/yard) or this nubby black wool ($14/yard) to make myself a scarf. 

A Baking Class

My business partner (the grand name I’ve just decided on for my friend Drew, the videographer and editor behind my most recent cake class) would chide me if I failed to mention this one! We have a new class that will be available just after Thanksgiving, all about how to stack and decorate a small tiered cake. We’re calling it Tiny Tiers, because starting small allows you to learn the techniques and confidence to assemble a larger tiered cake down the line, if you choose. It also produces a cake of an appropriate scale to a mid-sized family gathering, micro-wedding, or baby shower. I’m now offering gift cards to make gifting a class a little easier - a $35 card gives the recipient my king cake class (available during the Mardi Gras season only), and $50 will allow you to purchase the cake decorating classes (A Dome Cake for Everyone and Tiny Tiers). You’ll get $5 bucks off your gift cards through Small Business Saturday (thanks for shopping small). My website allows you to set a custom delivery date for the e-gift card, so you can buy now and have the gift delivered on the date of your choosing. 

And even if you don’t take mine, there are so many wonderful online classes these days! I was lucky to be a tester for my friend Rachel’s hand-laminated croissant class ($75) - it’s a very special course and so much fun to dive into viennoiserie at home. Camilla Wynne has several excellent workshops ($30ish-35ish in US dollars) as well: you could choose between handmade marzipan fruit, confections, and a marmalade class. Her marzipan course is one of my all-time favorite workshops. You should consider her incredible book, Nature’s Candy, as well.

Spendy 

Ok, to be honest I don’t have anything for this category. I don’t know anyone who can really ball out on holiday presents this year, and if I did, they probably don’t need this gift guide.

I want to shout out my friend Camilla Wynne’s incredible new book, Nature’s Candy : Timeless and Inventive Recipes for Creating and Baking with Candied Fruit. If you’re on social media in the baking sphere you have probably already seen many folks wax poetic about this book, so let me just say that Camilla’s work has transformed my relationship to using local fruit. I used to get a sort of panicky feeling when a new fruit varietal appeared for its brief Louisiana season at the market. If I didn’t buy scads of it, then I was missing out. Camilla’s careful and joyful instruction in candying and preserving fruit has allowed me to let my guard down. I buy what I want (and what I can afford), and use her recipes to preserve it for another day. The technique of candying fruit isn’t difficult, but it does require that we give ourselves time to slow down and engage thoughtfully in a process, a practice that I think we could all really use right now.

Plus, the photos (styled by Michelle Marek and photographed by Mickaël A. Bandassak) are totally gorgeous:

For what it’s worth, I was sent a promotional copy of the book but I had pre-ordered it anyway. If you are desperate for the book but can’t afford it, shoot me a dm on Instagram and I’ll send you my extra copy.

On honeyed pears

I’ve had a note pinned to my bulletin board1 for nearly a month now. It says: “Cheesecake, by 10/27”. It’s a reminder to develop a recipe I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while now- a caramel pear cheesecake, for this very newsletter. I’ve bought the pears to test it twice. Each time, I’ve positioned them carefully in a trifle bowl, nestled in a dinner napkin, so they can take their time to ripen without being bruised. This is the only way I’ve found to have a good pear in this part of the country. We have no farmer’s market pears here, and the only ones you can buy arrive at the grocery store rock-hard. I have waited over two weeks for a supermarket pear to approach acceptability. Each time, I end up cutting them up into my father-in-law’s morning oatmeal. I simply haven’t had the juice for an unpaid, complex, recipe development project.

My wife and I have a shorthand for the constant, droning misery of the world buzzing in the corner of our vision: the horrors. How am I? Fine, except for, of course, the horrors. It’s a handy stand-in for Palestine, the election, climate change, or the fact that we are living with a person who is dying. I know I’m not alone in feeling like, lately, the horrors have profoundly fractured my creative attention. I find myself longing to lose myself in a creative project. More often than not, I lose myself by playing Tetris on the family Nintendo Switch. 

Which is why, last week, it felt like a gift when I was suddenly consumed by a kitchen experiment. The inspiration came from an unexpected place: my worn hardcover copy of Mattimeo, part of the Redwall series of children’s books by the British author Brian Jacques. Perhaps not so unexpected, though - Jacques is rightly famous for his electrifying depictions of banquets, filled with detailed, stirring descriptions of food, all lovingly prepared by anthropomorphic mice, squirrels, moles, badgers, and otters. I was totally obsessed with the books as a kid. They are mostly tales of grand adventure, friendship, and bravery, but the feasts always captivated me too. I was asked by Cake Zine recently if there was a fictional depiction of food that lives rent-free in my head, and my immediate answer was my beloved Redwall. Here is a scene from Mattimeo, where a brash young mouse, the son of a famous father, attends a banquet: 

“Then there were the cakes, tarts, jellies, and sweets. Raspberry muffins, blueberry scones, redcurrant jelly, Abbot’s cake, fruitcake, iced cake, shortbread biscuits, almond wafers, fresh cream, honeyed cream, custardy cream, Mrs. Churchmouse’s bell tower pudding, Mrs. Bankvole’s six-layer trifle, Cornflower’s gatehouse gateau, Sister Rose’s sweetmeadow custard with honeyglazed pears, Brother Rufus’s wildgrape woodland pie with quince and hazelnut sauce...”

Reading this, I remembered my overlooked pears, still in their nest. I googled sweetmeadow, which isn’t really a thing, but meadowsweet absolutely is: an herb often steeped as a tisane, and occasionally used in herbal medicine practices. From Wikipedia: 

“Filipendula ulmaria, commonly known as meadowsweet or mead wort, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Rosaceae that grows in damp meadows. It is native throughout most of Europe and Western Asia (Near East and Middle East). It has been introduced and naturalised in North America. Meadowsweet has also been referred to as queen of the meadow, pride of the meadow, meadow-wort, meadow queen, lady of the meadow, dollof, meadsweet, and bridewort.”

I’m not a devotee of herbal medicine but I was intrigued by meadowsweet flower’s flavor profile: honey, hay, and bitter almond. I briefly considered ordering some online, but I couldn’t wait - I needed to follow this thread before I lost it. I called our local herb shop, Maypop, and as luck would have it, they had meadowsweet in stock. An hour later I was steeping the mixture, a mix of dried blossoms and leaves, into a créme anglaise. 

The honeyglazed pears came easily, thank god. First, I sliced a just-ripe pear in two and used a teaspoon to remove the seedy core. I then covered the bottom of a stainless steel sauté pan with a thin layer of honey (nothing fancy as I would be heating it - I got my honey from Costco). I set the pan over medium heat until the honey started bubbling around the border. When it just began to emit a bare whiff of caramel steam, I nestled the pear halves, cut side down, in the sizzling honey. As the pear halves began to sweat, I spooned the resulting honey-pear poaching liquid over their backs. After about three or four minutes, I had two meltingly tender glazed pear halves. 

I wasn’t totally bullish on the flavor of the créme anglaise. I think it may have fared better if I had access to just meadowsweet flowers, as it seems the leaves impart an astringent flavor. I generously salted the creme anglaise to draw out the bitterness and whisked in a dollop of vanilla bean paste. At its best I think it would taste like a sweet-smelling barn, wheaty and earthy. Next time I’ll try it with just hay, perhaps, or steep almonds directly in the custard like I was making orgeat. The pears were sweet and slightly smoky from the caramelization, and I wanted to drink the pool of sticky syrup as it seeped into the custard when I sliced into the fruit. 

With thanks to Sister Rose and Brian Jacques, sweetmeadow custard with honeyglazed pears, a dish from a better world than ours:

If you’d like to recreate the recipe, I’d aim to source just the meadowsweet flowers, and use whatever créme anglaise recipe you like -they are mostly all the same. Whatever you use, steep the flowers only briefly. I used about a tablespoon to a cup and a half of liquid. A brief Google search informs me that you shouldn’t use meadowsweet if you are pregnant, but I’m not an expert.

And yes - I’m aware of the Redwall cookbook, I even own a copy! But somehow I’ve never wanted to look too closely, in case the food within doesn’t match what I’ve imagined in my mind.

A quick note:

Many of you have already seen the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia. Southern Smoke Foundation is set to provide grants to hospitality workers in affected areas, and Blue Ridge Public Radio has put together a list of other ways to help. Please consider donating if you are able.

A Tater Tot Quiche is Born

Lately, I have been working hard to become the woman I want to be: a woman who uses up every scrap of leftovers in her fridge. I could tell you this is my noble effort towards sustainability, but truthfully, I think it’s looming middle age: I currently count cleaning and organizing my refrigerator as one of my more exhilarating weekly hobbies. After every grocery trip, I pull a chair up to my fridge and detail it, FIFOing1 yogurt and parmesan, rotating lettuce in the crisper, and figuring out how to incorporate any remaining leftovers into tomorrow’s lunch. 

Thus, tater tot quiche was born. I had an excess of eggs, a dash of cream, leftover grilled zucchini and tomatoes, a pallid quart of shredded kale, a freezer-burnt roll of store-bought pie crust, three slices of salami, and half a bag of tater tots. A couple of pieces of cheddar rounded out my plan. 

Last year, I published an essay on how to improvise a savory galette, where I wrote the following: 

Learning where and how to riff in a recipe is a great way to liven up your baking, and a galette is a great place to start since, no matter, what, we’re all just chucking a temperamental range of ingredients in a flaky crust and hoping for the best. In my opinion, even a galette you’ve made a million times will always come out a little bit different depending on the vagrancies of the oven, the ripeness of the fruit or veg, the phase of the moon.

The same, I believe, is true for quiche. I don’t quite have a recipe for you today, but I also don’t really think you need one. Sure, I could iterate a tater tot quiche twenty times in a row and build out a recipe that answers any conceivable question, but a tater tot quiche is just not that serious. Instead, I’ll walk you through my thought process for assembling this quiche, so that you, too, can chuck all of your leftovers in a crust, cover it with eggy custard, and enjoy a lunch flavored with a little sanctimonious glee. 

The crust

I don’t think you need to be precious here, and I’ve already revealed myself to be the sort of person who has store-bought pie crust in the freezer. I think it can be a nice thing to have around if you don’t feel like making one from scratch, and while they may not be as delicious as homemade, they make a perfectly adequate vehicle for quiche. Or, make your own, from whatever recipe you like. The most important thing here is that we’ll need to blind bake the crust. I like to parbake mine a little harder than you might expect, since my egg custard won’t take long to set up (more on that later). I weigh my crust down with a sling of parchment and some old brown rice, and bake it in a preheated 375 degree oven for twenty minutes. When done, you should see the bottom of the crust has lost its damp sheen, and your crimped edge will be a pale golden brown. This may take more or less time in your oven.

The filling

While your crust is parbaking, we’ll figure out our filling. We want all of the vegetables that go into our quiche to be pre-cooked and well-seasoned. This means any juicy vegetables, like peppers or summer squash, will need a hard sear to draw out and evaporate excess water. Cherry tomatoes, if used, should be roasted until burst and caramelized. I’m not a fan of patches of watery veg in my quiche custard, so taking these steps will mitigate that.

Make sure you’re seasoning as you go, a key to building flavor. I use salt and pepper or these korean chili flakes.  Of course, leftover grilled or roasted veg is great for this purpose as it’s already pre-cooked. If you’re using greens, saute them with lots of garlic, salt, and pepper, and add a little more than you think you’ll need to the pan, as well all know they’ll shrink down more than we expect. I want my quiche to be chock-full of filling, just barely bound together with custard. If you’re using meat, like salami or bacon, chop it up into small bits and treat it like a seasoning. 

Here is an incomplete list of further leftovers that I think would be tasty in a quiche:

• Mashed potatoes (I would ball these up into croquette-sized pieces and scatter them around the bottom of the crust)

• Croutons (think savory bread pudding)

• Old slightly sad bags of spinach or arugula

• Leftover charcuterie

• A wilted salad of bitter, hearty greens 

• Roasted sweet potatoes or hash browns

• Knobs of dried-out parmesan, grated 

• Bits of stale biscuits, savory scones, or cornbread 

• The last of a jar of kimchi or salsa

Whatever you use, you’ll want about three cups of filling for a 9” quiche. 

The custard

I need a synonym for the phrase “don’t be too precious about it” so that I can say it again. I use 5-6 eggs, beaten well with a pinch of salt, pepper and about half a cup cream. This may be a pastry chef problem but I always have cream laying around that needs using up. You could also use half-and-half. I personally would not use milk as I find that eggs take on a sulfurous quality I don’t enjoy when not muted with a healthy dollop of fat. Your custard will be much silkier for it as well, and will set firmly in a shorter amount of time. I also use the custard as an opportunity to use up the dregs of any other dairy products I have laying around - the last scraping of a tub of sour cream, labne, or ricotta, for instance. I never measure that element but I’d hazard you shouldn’t add more than 3/4 of a cup.

The tots

If you have them, cook them first. I have an air fryer, so I use that. They should be as I crispy as you can make them. I think I used roughly 16 tater tots for my own quiche. 

I think sometimes people are surprised I have processed food laying around. I don’t think processed food is inherently bad, and our pantry is stocked with lots of both raw ingredients and convenience foods. This frees up mental space for me to think about things other than making all my meals from scratch. Processed foods are a gift.

To assemble and bake

Place your filling in your pie shell - it should fill it up about three-quarters of the way. Pour your egg custard over the filling. It might seem like too much custard but it will all soak in. If using tots, press them onto the surface of the quiche - some will eventually be submerged and lend a spanish-tortilla quality once baked. If you’re using a melty cheese, or a crumbly feta or bleu, scatter it over the surface of the quiche now. Bake in your oven until set, which might be 20 minutes, or maybe more like 35. I didn’t measure the amount of time it took my own quiche to bake, and this isn’t a real recipe anyway. This is a nice time to sharpen our powers of observation: your cheese should be melty and your crust golden when the quiche is finished, and your egg custard should be firm but not rubbery. A little undulating wiggle in the center is fine. I let mine cool most the way before slicing and serve it gently warm.

But first:

• I recently discovered this website, featuring an annotated English translation of the earliest surviving cookbook, the Roman text De Re Coquinaria of Apicius from the late 4th century CE. Yes, it looks like a homemade Wordpress site from 19971, but I’ve been really enjoying doing keyword searches to find chestnuts like the following, a method for preserving pomegranates: “Steep them into hot sea water, take them out immediately and hang them up. They will keep”. Will they though??

• If you’re a data nerd you might enjoy this article by Saul Justin Newman on why the conversation around blue zones / extreme aging is marked by a lack of academic rigor:

  “Okinawa in Japan is one of these zones. There was a Japanese government review in 2010, which found that 82% of the people aged over 100 in Japan turned out to be dead. The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death.”

  Turns extreme aging is less about eating seafood and more about pension fraud! 

• Recently I began the book This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone and then promptly lost my copy of it somewhere in my house. I was really drawn in by it and I feel like I can’t start anything new until it turns up. In the meantime I’ve been catching up on zines: Candy Land by the folks at Cake Zine, and On Making a Living As An Artist by the Creative Independent. I’m also really looking forward to the upcoming recipe zine by At Heart Panadería. Long live zines!

Writing Food in Fiction with Jami Attenberg

I recently took Alicia Kennedy’s excellent course on newsletter-crafting, where she mentioned that the writer Jami Attenberg had put out an unusual call: she would be willing to answer three questions from anyone with a newish Substack. I’d recently partnered with my friend Keia to hold a personal writing accountability session around Jami’s book 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round, so her work was top of mind.

An admission: I’d also recently sat across from Jami at a dinner party, where I’d confessed my secret dream of writing a science fiction romance novel (how many people confess these dreams to writers over fresh corn salad and roasted fish?). I took this opportunity to ask Jami what she thinks about writing food from the perspective of a novelist.

A thought that will stay with me: that writing about food and dining is not just about the meals that we eat, but also how we want to be perceived by others. Though my food writing has always been non-fiction, I’ll continue to mull over how the type of recipes I publish and the way I write about food represent more than just flavors and techniques, but also how I want to be seen. From Jami:

“not just what a character eats (or drinks), but how it makes a character feel, what it says about them, and what they think it says about them.”

Bronwen: I'm thinking of the way you craft interiors and the small details that tell us how a family might be shaped: the father who sits at the head of the dining table in view of the TV in the kitchen, which is always left on, or the mother stirring insipid canned lentil soup that she won't really eat. Do you have a favorite detail related to dining or a meal in one of your novels? Or someone else's novel?

Jami: When I think about food in my body of work, I have to think about my fourth book, The Middlesteins. A lot of that book is about certain characters loving food but also having a complicated relationship with it. There's quite a bit of fast food in it but also a comforting scene involving fresh rye bread. I did try to make most of the food in that book sound delicious, so that we have a deeper understanding--at least in part--of their emotional connection to eating. 

In general, I try to write food into my book that I would want to eat. Food scenes are a great device to get to know a character. Sometimes if I don't know what to do with a scene I just have a character start eating something and even if I don't end up using it, I've probably gotten to know the character a little better in the process.

Nora Ephron's Heartburn is a classic in terms of using food, and of course her mashed potato moment/recipe is one of my favorites. Here's a quote:

“In the end, I always want potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Nothing like mashed potatoes when you’re feeling blue. Nothing like getting into bed with a bowl of hot mashed potatoes already loaded with butter, and methodically adding a thin cold slice of butter to every forkful. The problem with mashed potatoes, though, is that they require almost as much hard work as crisp potatoes, and when you’re feeling blue the last thing you feel like is hard work. Of course, you can always get someone to make the mashed potatoes for you, but let’s face it: the reason you’re blue is that there isn’t anyone to make them for you.”

Bronwen: Does writing a good meal make you crave it? Do you write and cook along with your characters?

Jami: Yes! In The Middlesteins I invented a Chinese restaurant in the suburbs of Chicago. When I was growing up there, we never had any good Chinese restaurants--I mean they were all fine, don't get me wrong, I'll eat the hell out of any egg roll, but they were pretty greasy. And I just thought what kind of restaurant I would have wanted there, and then I invented a menu. I was also influenced somewhat by this piece by Calvin Trillin in the New Yorker about this wildly talented, peripatetic Chinese chef who worked in Chinese restaurants up and down the Eastern seaboard.

I do NOT cook though. Not in any sort of formal way. I fantasize about the taste of things and I have gotten recipes from chefs and also reads of my work by chefs to make sure I get the details right. But I am just a humble servant to the fantasy of eating.

In my new novel, A Reason to See You Again, I am occupied with the idea of eating by yourself in restaurants, not just what a character eats (or drinks), but how it makes a character feel, what it says about them, and what they think it says about them. I also have some good comfort food moments in the book. Buttery popcorn, more delicious Chinese food, a big breakfast scene with lots of bacon. These meals accompany sadder, more poignant moments, and in part I wrote them in to make me feel a little bit safer in the moment.

Bronwen: Do you have a favorite writing snack or beverage when you're working?

Jami: I think most people who work from home, whatever their job, live for those snack and meal-time moments. I try to keep a lot of fresh fruit in the house and I do a lot of drive-by grazes of grapes or raisins or blueberries throughout the day. But also I do like red licorice and sometimes keep that on hand. It sort of depends on whether I'm doing a long-haul project like writing a novel, which is less stressful, and more about the ebbs and flows versus a shorter project with a deadline. Then I might need a little processed sugar to get me across the finish line. Also coffee. Two cups of coffee a day is where I have landed in my life. But no more than that or I'm gonna fly to the moon and back.

Thank you, Jami!

Jami Attenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including The Middlesteins, All Grown Up and a memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home. She is also the creator of the annual online group writing accountability project #1000wordsofsummer, which inspired the recently published USA Today bestseller 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. Her tenth book, publishing September 24, 2024, is A Reason to See You Again. She lives in New Orleans. You can find her online regularly at Craft Talk.

But first:

• I want you to read this piece my friend Keia wrote about muscadines (more on those below). Her newsletter, Pleasant Living, chronicles her life working a farm and bakery in rural North Carolina.

• Did you know that the public has access to the audio of all the transmissions from the Apollo space program? A civilian named Eric Jones has compiled both the audio clips and annotated the transcripts themselves to provide context. Have a listen to astronaut David Scott attempt to give a grand speech to a television audience while standing on the surface of the moon fifty-three years ago (that particular audio is at the 1:59 mark). He gets distracted when he realizes he did a crappy job landing the lunar module. I really love it when a civilian passion project is so thorough that even NASA links to it/ references it in official documents.

• There’s still room in my upcoming class with 177 Milk Street- I’m jointly teaching it with farmer Megan Bayha, and it’s all about growing and using edible flowers. I don’t wan’t to create a scarcity mindset around signing up for these sorts of things - I think we have about five slots left, which is understandable since this one is a little bit spendy compared to some of my other offerings. It’s also a full two hours, which is a lot for an evening on a weekday! I will say Megan has packed an astonishing amount of information into this, and I also really love the recipe you’ll get as part of the cake decorating segment. Sign up here and use code GROWING15 for 15% off.

The Hurricane Kit, revisited

New Orleans was hit by a glancing blow from Hurricane Francine, who rather rapidly heated up to a Category 2 before downgrading to a tropical storm upon her arrival in Louisiana. I shrugged off going shopping in advance. We had plenty of leftovers that needed using up in case the power went out, and anything else I might want was tucked in the hurricane kit under our bed (toilet paper, water, batteries, and cat food included). My wife had to duck out on a business trip just ahead of the storm, so I spent Wednesday and Thursday feeding my father-in-law and I a weird amalgam of overripe stone fruit stewed down into oatmeal, leftover orzo with butternut squash, frozen pizza, cornbread, ice cream, and canned vegetarian chili I fished out from under the bed when I couldn’t stomach a second frozen pizza.

I did not post this picture to Instagram.

I spent the storm either taking bad videos of the wind and rain, or using two middling romcoms as background noise while scrolling aimlessly on my phone, watching other people’s bad videos of wind and rain. I know that I’m lucky: it could have been so much worse. 

Some of you may have read Alicia Kennedy’s recent piece Writing the Weather. In it, she chronicles the dizzying dissonance of communicating with people for whom disastrous weather isn’t yet omnipresent: 

“We can’t predict the future, I read, while I’m without power, waiting for a storm to hit and maybe become a hurricane because the ocean temperature is so hot that it might whip the system into a frenzy. Am I not in a real place? Am I not on this earth? To whom are the increasing number and severity of weather-related disasters simply possible and not imminent?”.

1,580 miles away across the length of the Caribbean from Kennedy, here I sit writing my own weather. The New Orleans government hasn’t exactly made a formal announcement of this, but their approach to municipal safety has been quietly shifting since Hurricane Ida. The storms get too strong, too fast. The massive humanitarian crisis of the Superdome during Katrina, which was of course, bitterly, a massive PR crisis for the city’s leaders, had long caused them to shy away from offering public property as shelter. No longer: there might not be enough time to evacuate. And yet, too many poor, elderly people died of the heat during Ida while waiting for the power to come back (the same poor, elderly people who rely on city assistance to escape in the first place).

My phone pings, again, and again, and again. At 12:51 pm on Wednesday, shortly after the storm made landfall, the city helpfully reminded me to have non-perishable food for three days. At 8:54 pm, we are asked to conserve water, as the pump stations are overwhelmed and the drains are backing up. At 9:28 pm, we learned that AT&T customers may not be able to call 911, and to use the provided back up number. In time, as the storm wanes and the sun rises, the pings will continue with offers of civic shelters and charging stations, if you are able-bodied enough to get to them, and you have a phone to sign up for the text alerts in the first place. No longer centralized, like the dome was, the emergency resource centers are spread out across the city - simply click the link (if you have internet). Infrastructure is a dry topic, until it isn’t.

Our house never lost power during this more recent storm, but many others in New Orleans did. Some remain without electricity as I write this at 2:58 pm on Friday afternoon. We now have several small electric and solar generators to power the various machines that keep my father-in-law comfortable: the CPAP, the electric wheelchair, the cough assist machine. We are saving up for the prohibitively expensive whole-house generator. I think a lot about my friends who still work in restaurants, sorting through spoiled food, the crushing blow of simultaneous lost income and lost ingredients. 

Before you ask: why do we stay? Here’s another question instead: have you wrapped your mind around the sheer numbers of people who will soon be forced to leave their homes because of the weather, a tidal wave of climate change-forced migration? I’ve been to Isle de Jean Charles, have you? We are resourceful and prepared, until we no longer are, but we’ll cross that (poorly maintained) bridge when we come to it. 

A final observation

Someone (me, probably) should write about how many Gulf South residents turn to baking when a hurricane is on the way. My decidedly unscientific poll in my Instagram stories showed 85% of respondents have baked in advance of bad weather. I myself made cornbread and winged a batch of muscadine jam. The cornbread was perfect and the jam so thick with pectin I can stand a spoon upright in it. I’m thinking of melting it down and turning it into something akin to damson cheese or perhaps a fruit jelly layer on top of a panna cotta or set cheesecake. 

Others in my orbit made: blueberry muffins, more cornbread, a birthday cake complete with sprinkles and maraschino cherries, cornflake bars, yorkshire puddings, two pies, two brioche loaves, brownies, and many, many cookies. 

I don’t know about you but this summer has been a drag. I don’t want to wade too deep into “summer is terrible” discourse but I do think I’ve seen more Greek vacations or tomato sandwiches than I can bear (and I love tomato sandwiches, don’t get me wrong, but I wish to see no more of them). Blame the New Orleans heat + humidity, which can drain anyone of their last shred of humor.

Today’s post is a glimpse of a cooler future - I’ll be talking about the Diaspora pumpkin spice blend that comes back this week, and I’ve got a killer blondie recipe for you as well.

In case you missed it, there are still some slots for my upcoming collaborative class with Megan Bayha of Baby T Rex Farms on Thursday, September 19th. We’ll be talking everything you need to know about growing, harvesting, storing, and decorating with edible and non-toxic flowers (with plenty of tips for container gardens in small urban spaces). You’ll also get a really delicious recipe for olive oil cake with whipped cream frosting. You can get 15% off with the code GROWING15.

Sponsored post ahead!

Producing a recipe for Diaspora was a dream collaboration for me. To be clear, this is a sponsored post! But the lines feel fuzzy when I’m talking about Diaspora, a company that produces such dizzyingly expressive spices. Working with their products changed the way I bake- I’d never had access to spices that were this intensely fragrant before. Cinnamon used to be a throwaway spice for me, something I’d add to autumnal bakes almost as an afterthought. Now I recognize the full potential of cinnamon - how its vibrant, burnt caramel notes can pull out more nuanced flavors in apples or pears, or how it can serve as the bracing undercurrent to a gingerbread, just as important as the ginger itself. The luxury of the Diaspora mace is especially seductive. The lacy apricot-colored aril of the nutmeg seed is preserved whole- something I’d literally never seen before! When ground, it smells of tea and wet earth and tastes of bitter orange and licorice. I love to pair it with stone fruit, slipping it into summer preserves and pies. It's especially transformative with aromatic nectarines. 

In a previous life I would have turned up my nose at a pumpkin spice blend, snubbing it for its popularity among people who felt so different from me. It took taking stock of my own perceived-as-guilty pleasures to change my mind. Nicole Rucker said it best in her evergreen pro-PSL treatise for Bon Appetit:

“I seek to avoid being perceived as needy or fussy, and least of all, unsophisticated. It’s what you learn to do as someone who works in the ‘farm-to-table,’ ‘natural,’ ‘organic’ food space. Maybe it’s something I do as a woman, a fat woman, to make myself feel smaller and more deserving.”

Like Nicole, I had to give myself permission to embrace the idea of pumpkin spice. What freedom in just letting people enjoy things! And what delight in this particular spice blend - like any recipe, an expression of personality. The best recipes feel like strong, decisive choices were made in their development. The Diaspora pumpkin spice straddles a tricky line: it feels nostalgic, reminiscent of the pumpkin spice blends you might remember from childhood pies, while also striking into fresh territory. Both literally fresh- these spices arrive at your door much sooner after harvest than commodity spices - but also new: with a stronger (but not overpowering) backbone of clove and white pepper, threaded with green cardamom, nutmeg, and mace, along with the familiar ginger and cinnamon. The green cardamom, both floral and vegetal, pairs especially well with squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. 

Tasked with developing my own recipe to feature the Diaspora pumpkin spice blend, I knew I wanted to create something that could bridge the gap between these last days of August and the upcoming fall season. The result - carrot cake blondies, which are, in the words of another favorite LA pastry chef Sasha Piligian, “aggressively spiced”. They feature white chocolate, another famously polarizing ingredient I’ve only recently admitted that I love, as well as shredded carrots (of course), dates, and toasted pecans. The spices are bloomed in brown butter, and while it’s perfectly ok to use solely all-purpose flour here, this recipe would also work beautifully with a little rye or whole wheat thrown in as well. The best thing about this blondie is the way the texture shifts: cookie-like at the crisp edges and sinking into fudgy territory in the center. 

These recipe is very adaptable to whatever you have on hand. Feel free to substitute any nut or dried fruit you like (apricots and walnuts would be amazing, or toss in a handful of shredded coconut or golden raisins). They have a great shelf life- the texture and flavor are even better the next day. The recipe below can be made with brown sugar or a 50/50 blend of brown sugar and Diaspora jaggery for a more complex sweetness, the jaggery adding its own notes of maple and graham cracker. 

Spiced Carrot Cake Blondies

Yields about 12 blondies (depending on how you slice them!)

2 sticks / 8 oz / 226 grams butter

2 ¼ teaspoons Diaspora Pumpkin Spice Blend

1 ¼ cup / 272 grams light of dark brown sugar or 50/50 brown sugar/jaggery 

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon orange zest (optional)

2 cups / 240 grams all purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup / approx. 120 grams carrot, shredded

1 cup / approx. 170 grams dates, pitted and chopped

1 cup / approx. 110 grams pecans, toasted and chopped

4 oz / ¾ cup / 113 grams white chocolate, roasted (see note) 

Note: roasting the white chocolate is an optional step. If you’re not typically a huge fan of white chocolate, roasting it tempers some of the sweetness and adds beautiful caramel notes. I typically find higher-quality white chocolate in bar form in the grocery store, rather than using white chocolate chips (though you can use either). To roast, first preheat the oven to 350 degrees and chop the white chocolate (you’ll want largish chunks, about an ¾ of an inch wide). Line a baking tray with parchment paper, and spread the chopped white chocolate in an even layer.

Bake for 8-12 minutes, checking frequently to give the chocolate a little stir as it browns. It can move quite quickly, so once it begins to take on a pale golden color, watch it closely. Once it is a light brown, go ahead and pull it from the oven. Let cool completely before using. If you’re using white chocolate chips, this whole process will move quite a bit faster.

You may also substitute milk or dark chocolate if you prefer, though be forewarned an exceptionally dark chocolate may overpower the spices. 

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Prepare a 9 x 13 baking pan (often called a brownie pan) by spraying it with pan spray and lining it with parchment paper - allow yourself a long enough piece of paper that it extends up and over the sides of the pan. You can fold down the excess parchment and use it later to help lift your blondies out.

First, brown the butter. Melt the butter over medium heat in a small non-reactive pot, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon or a heatproof spatula, until it turns the color of dark straw and begins to sputter. Lower the heat and continue to stir. In about 6 minutes, the butter solids will begin to look like golden brown specks, and you’ll smell the brown butter’s nutty sweetness. Add the Diaspora pumpkin spice and stir vigorously to bloom the spices in the fat - this will smell incredible. Turn off the heat and pour the butter and spices into a separate bowl to cool, taking care to scrape all the brown butter bits out of the pot (they provide so much flavor!). Allow to cool to room temperature. 

While the butter is cooling, you can toast your pecans, shred your carrots, and chop your dates. If you’ve opted to roast your white chocolate, it should be also be cooling and almost ready to fold into your blondie batter.

Combine the all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside (you may need to sift your baking powder if it looks clumpy). 

Combine the cooled brown butter, brown sugar, orange zest, vanilla, and eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer (or feel free to use a handheld mixer). With the whisk attachment, mix on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and lightened. Fold in the dry ingredients by hand and stir until mostly combined - you should still see some unincorporated dry patches of flour. Add the carrots, pecans, dates, and roasted white chocolate (in that order). Stir until just combined. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and spread in an even layer - the texture will be quite thick. 

Bake for 28-30 minutes or until the edges of the blondies are a deep golden brown and have begun to separate from the sides of the pan, and the center springs back lightly when poked. Don’t be afraid if the center seems a little gooey- we want to take care not to overbake the blondies. Allow to cool completely before using your parchment sling to lift the blondies from the pan. Cut into twelve pieces and enjoy! The blondies can be kept, well-wrapped, at room temperature for up to three days, or frozen for several months. The texture of the blondies will be more cake-like the first day, and begin to develop a more fudgy quality as they sit (which is just how I like them). 

On a lighter note, I’m very excited to announce a new Milk Street workshop combining cake decorating, and yes, gardening! Only you’ll be hearing about the latter from an actual expert: Megan Bayha of Baby T Rex Farms. Megan was one of my primary sources for edible flowers when I was running the cake biz, and she’ll be teaching people the difference between edible and non-toxic blooms, as well as how to source and grow them. She’s put together an incredible list of recommendations, from soil to seed to pots (for any urban dwellers who don’t have a lot of space). You’ll also get a recipe for an olive oil cake with whipped cream frosting, and I’ll demonstrate how to assemble and decorate it. I’ll go into how I choose cake flowers depending on the occasion, and how to clean and store them so they last as long as possible. You can find the sign up page here. The class is September 19th from 5-7pm central (a full two hours!), and you can use the code GROWING15 for 15% off!

Megan cheesing with some (definitely not edible) lilies

On to the essay!

Our fig tree has developed an infestation. Thick clots of cottony insects have taken up residence on the underside of the leaves, which then darken, curl up, and die. I tried to spray them off with the most powerful setting on the hose. Fat locusts explode out from the top branches, perturbed by the jet of water. By evening we had the clippers out, lopping off swathes of infested branches. Immature figs, shriveled and already rotting, rained down from the limbs. Afterwards my wife got up on the ladder and spritzed the remaining leaves with a neem oil solution. It smelled a little like spoiled fish. I sat nearby and googled variations of Mealybugs on Fig Tree. Most of the hits were for hothouse fiddle leaf figs. I saw pictures of people gently daubing their house plants with cotton swabs dipped in anesthetic, tending the small spots dotting a leaf or two. Next to me was the great mound of sooty branches, each leaf mapped with the haze of white. My shirt was dotted with fallen insects and their shrouds. 

My wife and I are lackadaisical gardeners, which for us generally means we forget about the yard when we’re busy and then fixate on it when there’s big chunks of work to be done. In our spring (late February) we plant feverishly. By July all the vegetables are burnt up or rotted back into the soil, save for some fennel we’ve let flower for the pollinators and a few leggy eggplant shrubs and basil volunteers. And, of course, the weeds, which violently thrust their way through the expensive cultivated interlopers we’ve planted as ornamental perennials. Thorny cat’s claw creeps over our fence on all sides, vibrantly green with sunny yellow flowers. Its sinister vines are able to slowly dismantle a house, slinking up the siding and pushing off shingles to let the rain and rot in. If we vanished in a rapture, every structure around us would be smothered within a few years. 

I notice a broad black smudge across the trunk of the fig tree, thickening in the crevices between branches. It’s sooty mold, a byproduct of our insect plague. As the mealybugs eat the leaves, they excrete their sugary shit, honeydew, which then feeds the fungus and the contamination spreads. I end up scrubbing it off with a repurposed kitchen brush and baking soda. 

We halfheartedly use the remaining neem oil on our citrus trees - the meyer lemon, kumquat, satsuma, and calamondin. They are being eaten alive, and we’re not sure it will work. We’d already given up on the kumquat, cutting it back to the graft, but it's hell-bent on a comeback, sprouting new branches about waist high. The elder lesbian at the garden center told us that many of the kumquats in the region had died. Last week, ours produced a single, improbable bloom despite the silvery blotches on its new leaves. 

I can’t remember what disease is affecting the kumquats. When I try to look it up, I find that Louisiana is under multiple federal citrus quarantines. I click through the USDA interactive map and read their names: Citrus Canker, Asian Citrus Psyllid, Citrus Greening, Sweet Orange Scab. Our satsuma has four green globes of fruit, but each leaf looks like it has had a massive, cartoonish chomp taken from it. The lemon leaves are curled and twisted in on themselves like slap bracelets, as some worm wends its way through the cell walls. We trimmed one whole branch off the calamondin in the spring as it turned brown and died: the blight aptly called citrus dieback. We worried the infection would spread but it clings to life (like the sweet, sickly dog whose ashes are buried beneath its roots).  

We’ve already lost a palm tree earlier in the summer, to Lethal Bronzing Disease (its incurable pathogen crossing west from Florida). We thought it would take forever to cut it down but it had already been rotting from the inside for some time and came apart rapidly under a small folding saw. 

Meanwhile, the zinnias are thriving, thrusting up crazily from the thicket of burnt-up looking cosmos around them, Seussian and spectacular. A tropical wisteria, new to us this year, is taking over the arbor, producing sprouts of fuschia blooms that smell a little like lilac. The branches of our friendly, reliable crepe myrtle sway gently in the wind, shedding their fuzzy purple flowers. The crepe myrtle requires a yearly, brutal pruning to remain under control. In the winter we’ll trim back all the branches until it looks like a pillar of barren sticks. 

A corner of our yard is nearly taken over by elephant ears, which reproduce with their secret underground system faster than I can contain them. Their broad leaves grow with ominous speed, some nearly two feet across. We had transplanted some cuttings from a friend to fill in a bald spot in the yard and they continue to creep out into new places. I’ve taken to cutting them off at the base with the edge of a shovel. It makes a satisfying crunch as the blade severs the three-inch-thick stalks. Within a day, new growth will appear in the stem, whose diminutive width belies the size of the remaining tuber under the soil. 

Today I learned their other names - the coco yam, or wild taro. They are invading elsewhere, too, uprooting native plants in swamps across southeastern Louisiana. I read an article on LSU’s ag school website called Fortuitous Biological Control. A team of scientists is investigating a patch of taro that is dying in a swamp near Baton Rouge. Some are being eaten by an invasive insect species, the planthopper. Others have something called Dasheen Mosaic Virus, while a third cluster of symptoms cannot be ascribed to any known disease. A photo caption of an oozing leaf reads “coalescing brown/ necrotic lesions”. Citizen scientists are encouraged to report planthopper sightings on inaturalist.org.  

For now, my wild taro is healthy. They’ve been loving all the rain, a welcome break from the previous year’s punishing drought. Last summer was my first in Louisiana under a burn ban. This year, we gather up all the diseased branches and leaves and set them on fire. The green fig wood is slow to catch and the smoke feels thick and greasy. There’s an excessive heat warning, with the feel’s like temperature hovering around 115. When the weather begins to cool around the fall equinox, we’ll re-seed zinnias, greens, and radishes. By winter, we can assess the damage from our grueling summer season. Next year will be another round of slow, expensive lessons.