I've been waiting for something that felt worth blogging about, and found it with Holly Haines's peach and tomato shortcake recipe! I had planned to make biscuit tomato sandwiches and peach shortcakes for my 44th birthday, but immediately changed plans when I saw this recipe -- admitting that I didn't genuinely feel like making two types of biscuits. (FTR, I do think you can make the same biscuit to serve savory or as shortcakes, and will get into that below.)

I started with O’Henry peaches, Sungold tomatoes and corn from the Friday Old Oakland farmer's market. The tomatoes and corn were from Monte Bello Farms and the peaches were from Lagorio Bros.

Once I had the peaches and tomatoes macerating, I decided on the biscuit route. I noticed that Haines’s shortcake recipe is pretty close to a drop biscuit recipe that I like, by Genevieve Ko and inspired by All Day Baby. Both recipes call for 1.5 cups flour (Haines measures at 170g and Ko at 208g) and 2 teaspoons sugar. Haines uses 1/2 tsp kosher salt and Ko uses 1 tsp fine salt. To hold up to the light lamination, Haines uses significantly less liquid.

I decided to base my biscuit on Ko’s recipe because I generally prefer a moister drop biscuit, and I reduced the salt to 1/2 tsp fine. Remembering a masa biscuit recipe published by and to keep going with the recipe’s corn theme, I substituted masa harina for 25% of the flour. I used King Arthur Golden Wheat whole wheat bread flour for the remainder of the flour — I know, I’m ridiculous using bread flour for biscuits again when I say I like a soft biscuit. I believe in being a bit flexible with how things turn out though, for the sake of using more whole wheat and sustainable flours.

Considering that Haines’s and Ko’s biscuits have basically the same ratio of sugar to flour, I think you could definitely use the same biscuit for a range of sweet and savory toppings. You could try either of their recipes, based on if you want a layered or drop biscuit, and adjust the salt to how enthusiastically you salt your desserts. I might try that next time, maybe with both sweet and savory tomato options.

I am embarrassed, both as a proud community college culinary grad and person born and raised in South Carolina, to say that I felt daunted by the corn butter step, and almost skipped it. Our tiny studio means that anything gets on everything, so I wasn't excited about shucking corn and doing the inverted bowl in a larger bowl thing to remove the kernels. And then, needing to get the Vitamix out (that and the stick blender are the two mechanical food processors I currently own), and then more mess and potential waste from the straining, and then the cooking and chilling before whipping. I started spiralling a bit thinking about it. But it wasn't that bad! While there was no way around that I was shucking corn in my bedroom, the later steps were less fussy than I feared.

I don't know if any of you also have a Vitamix that you rarely use, maybe having purchased it during a bout of early pandemic kitchen Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Mine doesn't really fit how I currently like to cook, but of course, it is an amazing device. I dumped the corn in, and within a couple minutes, had this beautiful smooth puree, so there was no need for the straining and stovetop thickening steps. And it tasted stunning. Honestly, I preferred it straight rather than whipped into cream, although both were good. I think for a vegan version of this recipe, I would just go with the straight puree. You could obviously also fold it into your preferred vegan whip, or serve dollops of each.

I packed up the components, and we headed to Johnson's Beach Cabins in Guerneville for the night. I also brought skillet cornbread and a bean salad recipe from Gabriela Cámara.

I am pretty basic/easily pleased, and whipping cream with a whisk in a motel/hostel/non-Airbnb lodging makes me feel elegant! (Nothing being less chic than Airbnb.) But I do honestly feel that transforming an ingredient is a good way to feel settled into a space, so that's my overnight trip cooking advice: prep 95% and leave 5% for arrival, and insist on feeling glamorous about it like you're a Leo cooking your birthday meal!

If you're in the Bay, Monte Bello says they should have Sungolds and other cherry tomatoes until late Sept/early Oct — and that's it, because their heirlooms got the plague. They warned to consider coming early because there's a couple restaurants that come by and buy them out. I also checked today with Lagorio Bros., and the yellow peaches are sadly done — they have one or possibly two more Fridays of white peaches and nectarines!

reading

: Ali Chen Hears What Prickly Pear Has to Say

Hello! One more wedding cake post and this one was for us. :) Technically a registered domestic partnership, we decided to call it a wedding, which we read is on-trend lol. In addition to the cake stuff, I'm including our general budget below in case people are interested in doing something similar, or just morbidly curious what folks are doing in this economy. Zola lists an average 200-guest wedding in Oakland as $78K. We didn't do that!

After baking a cake in February for the Gilroy Public Library's goth Friday the 13th free wedding pop-up, I was excited to find that Oakland libraries also have a domestic partner option, if you count the free notary on Saturdays at East Oakland's Elmhurst Branch. While some states offer ceremonies for domestic partnership, California does not — in the Bay Area, the one option is to mail in a notarized document. Doing it at the library kept our paperwork to $33 (commercial notaries are allowed to charge up to $15 per signature). And of course, it was a fun way to mark the moment — the notary was stoked for her first domestic partnership, and asked to take our pics with her phone.

Paperwork out of the way, the main things we ended up spending money on were rings, sewing materials for my outfit, and a gondola ride on Oakland's Lake Merritt. The rings were $225 and $308 respectively for an eBay 14k/sterling silver ring for B – honestly browsing used wedding bands is hilarious and I recommend it – and a recycled silver band for me.

The gondola was $222 after tip, and I really recommend it if you're looking for a special occasion. Apparently Venice and Oakland have the same number of professional female gondoliers (one). Amelia Dreyer was great, serenading us in Spanish and Portuguese, and catching us up on the gossip on the lake's most famous bird residents. BTW, she recommends 4th of July as a good time to book because you're getting the illegal firework shows from all directions.

For my jacket and pants, I paid about $290, for patterns ($34), copy shop printing ($36), and fabric ($220). Also there was the thread and elastic, so a bit over $300. The patterns were Vivian Shao Chen's Daphne Jacket and Elizabeth Suzann's Florence Pant, both with Merchant and Mills 10oz recycled laundered linen (unfortunately not seeing their 100% recycled linen listed anymore — it was worth it, but pricey with tariffs, and unfortunately I paid for shipping twice!).

I intended to make a Rama Top using a ripped linen sheet — it's an angular low-cut vest alternative that I thought would give the outfit the vibe of the Issey Miyake Vogue 1693 pattern. But I ran out of time, and used a silk shirt from the Buy Nothing group. The pants were held together by dozens of safety pins on the day of. The trade-off of sewing clothes by hand is that goofy things like that happen, but I also feel more free to take the reins with my clothes and not feel intimidated or dominated by them — just pin it and make it do what you want!

Afterwards, I dyed the set dark slate blue with the goal of having an all-purpose formal outfit — I'm excited to sew a couple blouses to go with it. As I try to learn more about dressing, one thing the stylists seem to always caution against is looking unintentionally Halloweeny. (I might get this warning often because I love listening to the YouTube guys discuss workwear.) I'm not always sure about the image I want to project, but I think that sewing without a machine can get me at least halfway there in terms of looking settled in my clothes. It might be a silhouette I'm not used to, but I stitched the damn thing by hand, so there should be some aura of ownership!

The cake! I made a 5” and 8” tier cake, black sesame and guava flavors, based on ’s toasted sesame and citrus wedding cake, and inspired by the popular Grand Opening tart that I haven't tried yet. I like that you can't really tell the scale in the final picture — maybe I baked for dozens of guests! I did not. We ate the cake in about a week, with a few servings temped on the table at all times and the rest in the fridge.

The cake was not vegan, but the meringue swans were aquafaba, as always based on 's recipe in Plantcakes. It was my second time thawing this batch of meringue, and while it was easy to re-beat to stiff peaks, it maybe was faster to deflate this time, so the piping is pretty soft. I also added a little Americolor Super Black gel coloring to the meringue, which I don't recommend. Even though it is barely colored, the aftertaste really bothers me. Next time, I would just enjoy the beautiful black sesame buttercream color, and leave the meringue white. The swan template and directions are from !

Another perk of going the domestic partner route is that if we want another party, we can just get married. With any luck, this will probably happen in a few years as social security and VA benefits make the legal intrusion seem more worth it. I'm thinking of lengthening this dress.

I thought it would be a fun chance to try the Natasha Pickowicz toasted sesame and citrus wedding cake recipe with black sesame paste and grey aquafaba swans. As you can see, I remembered to do one of those things. It was the right call though — I was delighted with the taste and color of the frosting, without adding any additional dye. On the other hand, I added some Americolor Super Black gel coloring to the leftover meringue as I was getting ready to throw the leftover in the freezer, and to me it has a gross aftertaste even when used minimally. This obviously isn't an issue if the meringue is just decoration, but I really love eating my Lyndsay Sung-style aquafaba meringue! Thank you again to for the swan template that got me on this kick!

FYI for the locals: the Berkeley Bowl black sesame paste is a little hard to find. They stock this one. They also stock black sesame seeds for $3.99/lb in bulk so do not buy the Spicely packet that is $3.29 for .45 oz!

I wanted to make a Valentine's dessert for us also, and went with a vegan black sesame and apricot jam-dotted mochi cake based on Hannah Che's recipe. I ran out of glutinous rice flour, and was inspired by the San & Wolves vegan cornbread bibingka to do 75g each of glutinous rice flour, white rice flour, and medium grind cornmeal. A favorite combination!

sewing

A first try at the Daughter Judy Vento tank with a torn linen sheet. The pattern is for 32 to 60” bust measurement and was a fun beginner project.

When we moved into our current studio, I got rid of the four sewing machines I was hoarding, thinking that some aspirational hobbies had to go — but I just got sucked back in by the combination of this linen sheet and learning that the Oakland and Berkeley libraries have sewing machine hours. I'm actually sewing more now that it's by hand or at the library — so far I have only made it to one machine day, but have been finding the knitting circle library events (of which there are several per day in the Bay Area somewhere) to be great for getting advice with any stuck points. And the social aspect is huge — as much as I can enjoy being reclusive, it's a huge mental health plus that our current smaller studio encourages us to do more hobbies outside the house.

Sidenote — the linen fitted sheet that started it all was from Quince. I would not purchase a linen fitted sheet in the future for fabric wear reasons, or anything from Quince for ethical reasons, based on reading this reddit thread. “Quince is Shein for people who think they’re too good for Shein” whoops lol.

listening

Sewing podcasts! Especially Lisa Woolfork's Stitch Please and Zoe Edward's Check Your Thread.

I'm still on a swan kick over here, and super happy about these aquafaba guys. These are with ’s template again — I was going to try their 3D swan decorations but got lazy. Still, I’m happy with the depth!

I used the aquafaba meringue in ’s Plantcakes — this book is a bible to me! The one change I make from Sung’s recipe is that I reduce a few cups of frozen aquafaba to closer to a third of the original volume instead of half. I just keep cooking it until it seems in danger of there not being enough left, or I get bored. At that point, I continue with the recipe, adding the sugar relative to the volume of reduced aquafaba (if making the batch as written, I'm looking for 1 cup reduced aquafaba) and letting it chill into a gel overnight before whipping. This method is pretty foolproof for me for getting a meringue that will whip to stiff peaks, which isn't always the case with egg meringue for me — I wasn't able to get the Decorated Living meringue to stiff peaks last time, but was still able to pipe it softly.

I'm also thrilled that the baked aquafaba meringue lasts awhile — I made these swans a week before using them. In my experience, non-baked aquafaba meringue starts losing its shape fairly quickly, and feels like a lot of work for something really ephemeral. (Stefani Pollack says it deflates after 20 minutes at room temp, and that sounds about right to me.) Although I'm reading now that Sonja Goeden solves this with xanthan gum — excited to try!

I was going to use these swans on Natasha Pickowicz’s black sesame, cream cheese and pineapple layer cake from More Than Cake, but that recipe was kind of a fail for me. I made a lot of modifications, and will have to try it again as written before saying much. My preliminary thought is that while I am crazy about black sesame and cream cheese separately, I’m not totally crazy about them combined. I love this toasted tahini swiss buttercream from Pickowicz, and plan on making it with black sesame paste next time (I've been enjoying the Dipasa one from Berkeley Bowl).

When that didn't work out, I looked for a pudding lake for my swans, and went with ’s vegan pandan banana chocolate chip pudding. For the pudding. I substituted 1/2 teaspoon pandan powder and a bit of green food coloring for the pandan essence, and used vanilla wafers instead of chocolate chip cookies (the only vanilla wafers I could find at Berkeley Bowl were gluten-free and not vegan, so I used those). This was a really fun and easy recipe, and I love the custard. I used Cocojune vanilla unsweetened Greek-style for the yogurt, and I think the unsweetened yogurt pushed the assembled pudding into slightly less sweet than I like. Will definitely try it again with sweetened.

There will be more swan practice soon — on Friday, February 13th, I'm bringing a cake to the gothic-themed free wedding event at the Gilroy Public Library! I’m planning to do a grey-toned black sesame version of the Natasha Pickowicz toasted sesame and citrus wedding cake. This will be my third time using this recipe for a wedding — as you all know, I despise NYT Cooking and am also automatically suspicious of cool NYC pastry chefs, so when I say this is my current favorite cake recipe, I really mean it!

events

For those in the Bay, Astranda Bakery is having a cinnamon roll fundraiser for Immigrant Defense Network at Omnivore Books on 1/31. On 2/8, Bakes Not Bombs is holding a benefit for Modern Times Cafe, which is providing free meals in Minneapolis.

listening

Hello! I’m high from yesterday's wedding — I'd like to tell you about the grooms and the beautiful community gathered in their backyard, but I don't think they are on the internet like that, so I'll tell you about the cake. It was my second time baking ’s toasted sesame and citrus wedding cake. (NYT gift link — I’m on an ex’s account and encourage all of us to ignore the paper as much as possible.) It's a fantastic recipe and went great with another baker friend's gluten-free and vegan almond praline cake from 's Plantcakes.

Here are notes from the first time I made this cake — I was extremely proud of baking a 60-serving cake in our 240 sq. ft. apartment with a 14x16” oven haha. This time, instead of the 8” and 10” tiers, I made a 6” and 8” tier cake. A half batch of the chiffon cake fit well in the same 3” deep pans that I later built the tiers in — my oven obviously can't hold a half sheet pan, and I still don't understand the workflow of having that much cake scrap.

I made 2/3 of the buttercream recipe, and the full sesame crunch recipe, using all black sesame this time. I messed up the citrus compote this time trying to get clever and skip steps, and used homemade meyer lemon marmalade instead. This also meant that I didn't have the charred citrus soak — I substituted this “cake vinaigrette” from . All worked well together.

This was my first time making meringue swans. It was a blast! I'm having that psychological effect of: you never notice swans, but then you get into them and it's all you see. Of course, helped out by the algorithm. I think the first one that captured my imagination was this one from 101.bakery’s wedding. That one was a bit beyond what this home baker might fantasize about accomplishing, but once swan-focused, I started seeing versions all over the spectrum of more neat and symmetrical to more organic and stylized, including from Hyun Jung Jun, and .

Using The Gemini Bake's recipe, I enlarged the template 150% so that six 3” swans would fit on an 8.5x11” sheet of printer paper, which fits on a quarter sheet pan. My meringue didn't reach stiff peaks as specified (possibly my fault), but piped ok — it appeared only slightly looser than in their accompanying videos. I wasn't able to get as much depth, but fortunately they mostly stayed in place. To get a feel for different recipes, I might try the one in CIA’s Baking and Pastry next time. (My 2004 edition was $16 online.) I'm also excited to play more with aqufaba meringue — I’ve enjoyed making Lyndsay Sung's swiss and italian aquafaba meringue buttercreams, but I don't recall having baked vegan meringue.

Everything came together with some community garden flowers and herbs. And a nice East Oakland January golden hour. :)

Next weekend, I plan to make another Pickowicz cake for a friend's birthday at their dungeon. More swans, but goth-er! Someone please hook me up with a divorce cake order because then I will feel like I'm covering all the major bases!

events

If you are also in the Bay Area, 7th West is having a pre-valentine’s vendor market to benefit community members affected by ICE on February 7. Bakes Not Bombs is planning an anti-ICE fundraiser in SF on February 8.

reading

’s “Mushrooms Are Not a Metaphor: Maria Pinto finds climate futures hidden among wild mushrooms.”

’s “PLANTCRAFT: Magali Duzant Sits With Ghosts in the Herbarium”

Have been enjoying baking/cooking though. Last weekend, I delivered vegan turon cookies based on Rezel Kealoha's to my friend Catie Tralka’s cookie box benefit for East Oakland Collective. These were fun to make, and also a bit of an adventure due to seeking new-to-me ingredients in that week’s atmospheric river!

Kealoha's turon cookie recipe has banana (fresh saba and chips), langka/jackfruit chips, and toffee to mimic the fried snack. I love a turon-inspired cookie and was excited to check out this one. I originally intended to get off my overnight shift in Richmond and head to Vallejo's Island Pacific, but it was really pouring, so I tried Richmond’s 99 Ranch. I didn't see saba bananas or langka chips, so headed towards home to East Oakland’s Mithapheap Market.

At Mithapheap, I found langka chips — no saba banana that I saw, so I decided to substitute canned ripe langka. Afterwards, I went to Trader Joe's for banana chips and toffee. Goofy mistake with the toffee — it was not vegan, so our house ate that instead. I used extra banana chips for the toffee weight — I feel like it ended up being a bit chewy from the banana chips, and a little less salty/rich than I'd like, but I still felt happy with how these turned out.

The vegan modifications that I used were substituting flax eggs, and Tourlami premium butter instead of dairy. I happened to have the Tourlami around (a gift while staging at Greenhouse Bakery — thank you Rachel!), but think that for this type of recipe, a supermarket vegan butter would have been fine — my favorite is salted cultured Miyoko’s, and I think that would have been actually better here as the more flavorful butter.

Although I did not make the recipe as written, it seemed solid to me. The one comment I would make is that the cookies are described as Levain Bakery-style, and I'm not sure that they were quite that large. Other internet sources including Stella Parks describe a Levain-style cookie as 170g (Parks describes it as a “threatening” amount of dough). My cookies, for the 16 cookie yield and using the 1/2 cup measure stated, were 90g. This was, to be fair, the yield after I ate a decent amount of batter. (Blog disclaimer to say that the FDA wants you to know that raw vegan cookie dough could kill you, because of the raw flour. I’m not sure if this means I should avoid it, or enjoy it now before I’m a senior citizen and it is more likely to kill me. But for the sake of your health and my open rate, please observe FDA warnings!)

The cookies also were a bit more spread compared to what I see online of Levain-style cookies. That may have been in part because I was lazy — I didn't feel like getting out my stand mixer in our 240 sq ft studio, and made the batter by hand. Personally, I don't have a cookie height preference, so this was fine.

I made the cookies for a second time for a couple Scorpio birthday people. This time, I used TCHO Toffee Time chocolate for the toffee, and otherwise made them the same. This vegan chocolate was just okay to me when eaten as a bar, but great in the cookie. The textures and flavors pleasantly reminded me of a chocolate oatmeal raisin cookie. This version spread more, I assume because of the added moisture and fat, but it wasn't a problematic amount.

Kealoha has a blog section of Filipino cookies, and they all look like great candidates for a holiday cookie box (or a group cookie benefit or cookie swap if you are less seasonally masochistic). Her ube mont blanc would be great for a party!

reading/listening:

wrote about wanting to give up on writing after reading Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor. Fair, but also I'm constantly upset that I don't sound like him when I blog. I can't get enough of his Bay Area histories!

Is Cookbook Criticism Possible facilitated by with , and . Appreciated this and wish I had been around to listen live and embarrass myself in the comments!

I enjoyed this interview by Jacqueline Chio-Lauri with Joanne Boston-KwanHull, found while doing my homework for Laney's American Food and Culture.

Be present. Go to Filipino events. Go to family parties. Cook the food. Do anything that will potentially teach someone about the cuisine. Share it on a blog. Take photos. Teach a class. Cook a dish for your friends from a Filipino cookbook. We need to expose the food. All the while, we need to keep an open mind.

I have actually never been to Mexico, or a city as large as Mexico City, so it has been a really exciting trip for me. I asked Tzin if Día de Muertos would be a good or bad time, and she said good because she would definitely be in town hosting another touristing friend, so we could all tourist together.

We decided to continue our baking dates with pan de muerto, and her friend Mos said she'd like to join. I got slightly nervous — I had tried making pan de muerto once before, but using a stand mixer and with a recipe designed for my usual low elevation. So I did a trial run in Oakland using Pati Jinich’s recipe on King Arthur, attempting to hand-knead it, to get practice with at least one of these new-to-me variables. It was kind of messy and wildly overproofed, but people appreciated it! Thanks to everyone who offered encouragement and tips, especially .

After that attempt, I saw this Chainbaker recipe for hand-mixed brioche, which specifies to use all cold ingredients, and uses 30% butter (compared to Jinich’s 47%). I decided to try that one with Jinich’s flavorings, and try to adjust for high altitude with slightly more liquid and less yeast.

Here's what I came up with for the plan. I obviously don't pretend to have this nailed, but happy if you all can build on anything below, or advise me for next time!

500g flour
28g (2T) water
28g (2T) orange blossom water
2 teaspoons orange zest
1.5 teaspoons anise seeds
250g eggs
13g salt
60g sugar
6g instant dry yeast
150g butter

I brought the anise and instant yeast on the plane, and got everything else from the nearest Walmart in Xochimilco.

I couldn't find orange blossom water, so we used water for all the liquid.

The flour I got was Tres Estrellas Harina de Trigo Integral (whole wheat). This worked well and had the upside of being preferred by a diabetic family member — they reserved one before we added the sugar topping.

I dumped the 7g yeast packet in rather than measuring 6g.

On the first day, we combined the cold ingredients like Chainbaker recommended, kneading the dough until we got bored with kneading it. This might have been less time and with less of a smooth-looking dough than he achieved, but it ended up working fine.

The next day, after a fridge rest of 10 hours, we removed the dough. It didn't seem to have risen in the fridge, but we continued. Along the lines of the King Arthur recipe, we reserved 1/4 of the dough for decoration, and divided the remainder into six balls so that we could each shape two.

After shaping them, we left them to rise for 3 hours (until we got back from the market), and they seemed correctly or slightly overproofed, judging from poking them. While Chainbaker said it would be a 4-5 hour rise, I'm guessing it was quicker due to the high elevation and whole wheat.

We baked them at ~350F for 38 minutes, to an internal temperature of 190F. They looked good coming out of the oven — not visibly overproofed like my last attempt! Tasted good also IMO — I don't think the lower fat was particularly noticeable, and the whole wheat added a nice flavor.

I'm really grateful to have this memory with friends, and hope to try some more hand-mixed enriched doughs once back in Oakland. I'm always interested to learn about ways to make baking more accessible, whether that means using a mixer or not requiring one!

Travelogue/recs while I'm here!

UNAM! On Tuesday, I followed Tzin to a linguistics talk at her alma mater, and got dinner at Nube Siete while we were on campus — beautiful outdoor dining spot!

On Wednesday, we went on a Culinary Backstreets tour of Tzin's alcaldía, Xochimilco. I found the tour through an informative podcast with environmentalist and guide Victor Gamboa. The chinampas islands are one of the most incredible feats of urban agriculture that I've ever heard of, and I really enjoyed the tour, which included the Xochimilco Market, and a bicitaxi ride to the trajinera that took us to a chinampa currently cultivated by Noah Coquis.

To support agricultural revitalization, Culinary Backstreets partners with chinamperos until they are independent, and has so far worked with four plots. As far as I could tell, the tour seemed like a respectful way to visit the area. Our tour guide said the same of the kayak tours — while not agricultural, they are local jobs and low-impact, and she feels that the 4am birdcall crowd are typically polite guests. Don't go on the dead doll tours or axolotl tours — they are abused! — but our guide said there's a nice axolotl sanctuary at UNAM.

Thursday and Friday were mostly for baking, going to the market, and shopping and having dinner in the tianguis. On Friday night, we went to the IMMORTAL show at the Bureau of Queer Art.

Saturday (11/1), I was invited to a tiny apartment punk show that included the boyfriend of T’s Berlin-based friend, and to cemetery observance in Xochimilco by a friend of T whose ancestors are here. These both felt like special invitations, and I'm sorry to say that at this point in the trip, I was stuck in my hotel room drinking Coco Electrolit. Shout-out to Electrolit though! That stuff is incredible.

By Monday, I was mostly over the food poisoning, and we went to UNAM to check out the botanical gardens and some of the campus. I had googled anarchist cafe at UNAM after Tzin mentioned one, and asked if she meant Okupa Che, but turns out she meant Cafetería el Balcón de Emma Goldman. We were too early to eat at Okupa Che, but they let us take a look. There was an event in the Café Emma Goldman building and they wouldn't let us upstairs, so we aren't sure if it's still there. From the “MUERTE AL ESTADO” graffiti, we hope that it is!

We had planned to spend three days of my week trip at UNAM, and if I hadn't been sick, I would have loved to do that. And actually, the botanical gardens were so awesome that I wish I could have just spent a week there!

Hotels! Please don't stay in Airbnbs — probably everyone reading this knows they are on the BDS list and destroying cities. I stayed at Hotel Amala which is great if you want to spend time in Xochimilco. It has a 24-hr restaurant and is a short walk from the Parque Ecológico de Xochimilco, which has wonderful flower and plant markets and restaurants. It's also maybe the nicest sex hotel I've ever been in, although that wasn't on my itinerary, so you'll have to get a second opinion!

I started baking this bibingka to bring to a Liberatory Self Defense seminar with a local capoeira professor and one of my favorite vegan Filipino martial arts teachers. While it was in the oven, though, I saw a call to protest at the ICE facility in Stockton, where dozens of people had been called to report today. The Bay Area has been on edge this week since Trump announced that he was “invading” today. There has been a lot of deliberate chaos and confusion about him calling off the troops from San Francisco, and possibly from the Bay — but what about ICE, and the rest of California? So I finished baking and took the bibingka to share at the demonstration. While I tend to not want to back out of a commitment, I felt that on a personal level, I couldn't attend a self defense seminar while my neighbors were being terrorized today. Especially as a white person who claims to have lineage in Stockton-rooted Eskrima — hopefully I am not coming off as generalizing for others here but just stating where my line was today.

I am glad to have gone to Stockton today, although we were not able to stop the kidnappings. Tomorrow people will start an earlier 7am picket with the hope of fully shutting down the facility for the day.

After I left the demonstration, I swung by the Filipino American National Historical Society Museum. They were just locking up, but graciously let me in to grab a copy of Dr. Bernard James Remollino’s new book on Pancho Villa.

vegan blackberry cornbread bibingka

prep: ~30 mins / bake: ~60 mins

dry:

-120g plain rice flour
-60g glutinous rice flour
-150g medium grind cornmeal 
-200g brown sugar
-1T baking powder
-1/2t fine salt

wet:

-360g full-fat coconut milk
-107g neutral oil or melted coconut oil
-2T ground flax + 6T water
-1t vanilla

toppings (optional):

-1T brown sugar
-2T blackberry jam (or any preserve you like)

method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Line an 8x8” square or 8" round and 3” deep cake pan with parchment paper, or just grease it.

2. In a small bowl, mix flax + water. Let gel for 5 minutes.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients.

4. In another bowl, combine coconut milk, oil, vanilla, and flax gel. Whisk smooth.

5. Add wet to dry, folding until just combined.

6. Pour into prepared pan.

7. Prep your jam — I used 2T Bonne Maman blackberry preserves, and just beat it with a mini spatula until mostly smooth, but you could also heat to soften. Dollop the jam as you like on top, using a knife or skewer to marbleize if you want.

8. Sprinkle with sugar topping.

9. Bake 45–60 minutes, until a skewer near the center comes out with moist crumbs and the top is golden. In my opinion, today's bibingka baked to an internal temp of 205F was perfect in terms of the texture and edges caramelizing. With my oven and pan (8” square Pyrex), this took 57 minutes.

10. Cool in the pan for 20 minutes before slicing. Serve warm or at room temp.

I had made this cake once before in my old apartment, scaled down to baking a third of the batter in one half sheet pan. (As written, the recipe bakes in three half sheet pans, and is assembled in 8” and 10” round pans.) I found that the scaled-down recipe fit well in a 9” round, 3” deep pan, using every scrap of cake. I kept the full citrus compote amount, and that ratio was delicious.

For this weekend’s wedding, I baked the full recipe which serves 60, along with recommending that my friends hire Taya Marroquín of Mad Vegan Co. who baked three stunning cakes that served 90 total (and did a very elegant job with the wedding's polka dot color scheme!). Taya is my hero because, while I wanted to have this moment with my friends, I did not want to bake for 150 people. Teamwork!

Also, we recently moved into a 240 sq. ft. apartment that has an oven that doesn't hold a half sheet pan. Honestly, this is a better situation than our last apartment with the compact fridge — I'm not sure I could have accomplished this cake with that fridge. I was worried and coming up with lots of weird ideas about where I could bake this cake before remembering that my overnight caregiving job has a regular home-sized oven. I actually ended up doing this all in the apartment though!

chiffon cake

The original recipe calls for baking the cake in three half sheet pans before building it in 8” and 10” round pans that are at least 3” deep. This process is pretty cool, but I believe it leaves you with about 25% cake scraps, and I just physically wasn't able with my oven. So I baked 75% of the chiffon cake recipe in the 8” and 10” round pans used for the assembly. One cake fell from its upturned pan onto the rack while cooling, but I don't think anyone noticed in the finished product!

I believe the 75% batter was the right amount for baking in those pans as well as for building the cake without much or any scraps. So win-win in terms of not needing a bigger oven and no leftovers. I don't really understand how professional or home bakers deal with having 25% scraps in their work flow, and would be curious to hear more from people who use this method.

citrus compote

I love this charred citrus compote. I used all Meyer lemons which were very juicy — next time, I will squeeze out and reserve some of the juice, and use a cast iron skillet instead of Dutch oven, to encourage charring rather than steaming/simmering.

sesame brittle

This time I used half black sesame seeds. I was worried it would be too bitter but it was good.

toasted sesame buttercream

I really like this buttercream. Used Straus lightly salted (half salt of normal salted) 85% butter, which is my personal favorite. Sometimes when people complain about buttercream, I wonder if it's because the economics are forcing them to use a butter that they wouldn't want to have a mouthful of. In my opinion, using that quality of butter is important to buttercream success. Also on the long list of reasons I'm baking for friends and not professionally.

decoration

I used ripe and unripe Meyer lemons along with their leaves, and ripe/unripe pomelos, both from friends’ East Oakland yards.

I was worried that my frosting and decoration looked amateurish, even though throughout this whole process, I have been trying to lean into whatever touches make something homemade and personal — the labor or ingredients not being cost-effective, the organic shapes of my uneven hand. It definitely looked better later in the evening, with the mood lighting and after the newlyweds had tried it. <3

I was reading that sometimes professional bakers will make your wedding flavor for your first anniversary (instead of the freezing the top tier thing), and I am really looking forward to doing that for my friends.

reading

Belén Fernández’s Yes, The New York Times is committing genocidal journalism — feels important to share this whenever discussing a NYT recipe. I’m sharing a gift link from an ex’s account, but still giving them traffic unfortunately. Another reason I haven't been posting much — being really into recipes isn't that fun when so much of that space functions as soft power for genocidal regimes.

Following the prinsesstårta trend, I made a couple black sesame and tahini-flavored versions for my friends’ birthdays. In spite of discussion of this cake’s technical inaccessibility, I don't think that anyone who has lost sleep over vegan buttercreams has too much to fear. Here’s my first attempt—a bit lumpy for posting on the internet, but acceptable for a loved one’s birthday imo. (These weren't vegan, but I hope to try Sarah Kidd’s soon!)

~

This week, for a Gaza benefit at The Faight, I made a different marzipan-covered cake, the Battenberg. I'm happy to find that Battenberg cake isn’t tougher to make vegan than otherwise—it’s just cake, jam and marzipan (and as readers here probably know, storebought is typically vegan). Inspired by Sasha Gill’s work, I made the cakes vegan with coconut and pandan flavors.

I don't own a Battenberg pan, and wasn't super excited about doing the makeshift pan divider thing—fortunately, it occurred to me at the last second to just bake two 8” square cakes and divide them into quarters after baking for my two Battenbergs.

I made the cakes using the King Arthur vanilla cake pan cake recipe—my favorite simple vegan cake recipe. In both cases, I used 226g King Arthur golden whole wheat flour in place of 240g AP, as a more sustainable choice. It was a bit tougher than I was going for, and next time I will try substituting up to a third of the AP with golden whole wheat as King Arthur recommends—and I welcome input here from anyone reading!

For the pandan cake, I used pandan juice in place of water, made with thawed leaves from East Oakland's Mithapheap—the owners are lovely folks, enthusiastic about sourcing, and happy to volunteer pandan intel! Of course, if you don't feel like getting out the blender, Mithapheap also sells Singing Bird Brand canned pandan juice and Butterfly pandan extract. I also added green gel color to the cake and the marzipan.

For the coconut cake, I added 2T coconut milk powder with the dry ingredients.

To assemble the cakes, I looked at YouTube, and kept the cake chilled in the fridge or briefly frozen between steps. I used a 12oz jar of Bonne Maman apricot jam and five tubes of Odense marzipan to assemble both cakes. Happily, it was easier than prinsesstårta marzipan draping—I should have tried this first!

In addition to marzipan sidestepping the melting point issue of frostings, I was happy that both of these cakes came together without an electric mixer. (I haven't brought myself to using my stand mixer yet in the new apartment—we are having neighbor issues and it feels like a lot!)

Of course, the next issue is that Odense marzipan is made with one of my least favorite crops, California almonds. Please chime in if you have experience with marzipan alternatives—I'd love to try sunflower marzipan like uses beautifully here!

this week’s reading

Ivan Day on Battenberg “rubbish” theories, recommended by Sasha Gill

Shilpa Iyer’s “What you need to know about baking with pandan”

’s “PLANTCRAFT: Evan Collins Imagines the Future of Plants in Design”

Alessandro Petti and Beit Sahour’s “Destruction and Reconstruction”

Let's start with Stella Bugbee. While researching ikebana, I came across her work—she’s the freakebana lady. Also apparently the New York Times “Styles” editor (I try to limit my time with that paper).

According to Bugbee: “The turnt cousin of Ikebana, Freakebana is the art of arranging whatever-the-hell, in a way that nods at the traditional Japanese art form, but subs out years of study for a naive, new-wave naturalism. In Freakebana, the components are more likely foraged from the corner deli, as opposed to a Shinto garden. Good Freakebana mixes sparse, eccentric elements for maximum surprise.”

I've been studying ikebana for less than two years and am a baby, but I can say this: Who the fuck is foraging in a Shinto garden? The classical Japanese gardens that I'm thinking of near Oakland are in public parks—poor form. My sensei’s teacher has a cut flower garden that she allows us to forage sometimes. The corner deli, on the other hand, is entirely traditional. Morimono—a style of ikebana translated as “piling up objects” which features fruit and vegetables—traces its roots to China, and I suspect it would be difficult to find a culture with no history of expressing abundance with harvest arrangements. Sogetsu, which I study, was founded in 1927 with the motto of “anyone, anytime, anywhere, with any material.”

Bugbee quotes Deborah Needleman on ikebana's contemporary appeal having to do with “its direct and personal connection to nature, its awareness of and emphasis on decay in an era in which our own ecological and environmental ruin feels more vivid than ever.” Bugbee replies, “True. But there’s also something else happening that has less to do with nature and more to do with attitude.” I'm just wondering whom Bugbee imagines when she thinks of practitioners of traditional Japanese arts. Here are photos of the Cadillac owned by the founder of our system, Sofu Teshigahara.

Teshigahara pushed ikebana’s direction of using non-natural materials further and into more sculptural directions, in line with fellow avant-garde artists of the time. Along with fellow ikebanists Houn Ohara and Yukio Nakagawa, they borrowed the French Surrealist term “objet” for their arrangements.

I don't know my art history well, so come on this journey with me. The MoMA website says, “Many Surrealist artists, especially in the 1930s, began arranging objects in combinations that challenged reason and summoned subconscious and poetic associations. Their materials were often found objects or unique items cheaply purchased at flea markets. They found new resonances when arranged in unprecedented and provocative configurations.” Sounds like… exactly what ikebanists were doing in the 1930s, almost a century before the freakebanists? It seems like Parsons would have had time to catch up on this information before Bugbee got there!

Teshigahara worked heavily with scrap metal particularly after WWII, when Tokyo was levelled. The roots of man-made material in floral design, along with international art movements of the 1920s and 1930s, are deeply connected to reckoning with war.

*

Last Sunday, I reached my first morimono arrangement in the Sogetsu curriculum. With ikebana’s tradition of using what is available in mind, I picked up a flat of sprouting potatoes and sweet potatoes from a Buy Nothing group lady to go along with a few that I had been sprouting in water. I took a walk in the upscale Rockridge neighborhood and picked a few pieces of flax, fountain grass, and wild buckwheat, and grabbed a few onions with greens attached and curlicued eggplant from the Old Oakland Farmer's Market.

Fortunately, one of my sweet potatoes had grown a few inches of roots, because Sensei explained that morimono needs them—they attract money, she laughed. My arrangement was somewhere between compost heap and banquet mood—she allowed this, except for pointing at two particularly rotten potatoes—saying that, for her, the balance of lively vs. decaying or dried material was better after their removal. She doesn't discourage my use of weathered materials, and tossed some at me, saying, “I'm talking to her—she's into the dead look!”

I was doubtful when I first piled my ingredients on the table for this assignment that I could make something coherent with them—but with enough shuffling around, I began to see line and movement, and something that felt good enough for a first attempt. Sensei really liked the arrangement and said that my design has improved markedly recently—she said, pleased, that it’s probably because I’ve been attending these semi-private Sunday mornings in her backyard—the individual attention helps. Before it got too hot, I helped her with yard work as usual—it is meaningful to me to be able to thank her in some way for her time and expertise as well as for her political organizing work.

*

Freakebana: the $8500 De Beers blood diamonds are punk because you added sandwich bread.

I wonder what makes Bugbee feel comfortable thinking of ikebana as a static practice, unchanged through the centuries and made without humor or rage. Whimsy is a classical aesthetic in traditional Japanese arts, and there's never been an artistic period when practitioners weren't chafing against current fashions and conventions. Freakebana, on the other hand, is watered-down, derivative and ultratraditional, if we put it within the lineage of white people repackaging defanged ideas for profit.

I want to be clear that I have no issue with the random person playing with their CSA box without giving it much thought. Making art without skill is a basic part of the human condition. But to make a living off your purposeful illiteracy is another thing.

*

My Sogetsu class is held in a community center, J-Sei, with a student body of many Japanese American seniors. Some have living relatives who were interned during WWII. Portraits including some of those relatives line the four walls of our classroom—Paul Kitagaki, Jr.’s exhibit of photographs of families headed to the camps in their Sunday best, taken by photographers such as Dorothea Lange, are shown alongside Kitagaki’s more recent portraits of the same survivors. Kitagaki shared that many elders were reluctant to be photographed until after 9/11, when their desire to not impose their pain on others became less important than the need to not allow this to happen again. Their gazes confront us from all sides as we work, and I feel the urgency shared by my classmates, many of whom are doing all they can to prevent California’s former Dublin prison from being used as an ICE detention center. The generation who remembers WWII is leaving us, no accident, as war escalates again. We owe them our continued watching and speaking, and we also owe them thoughtful engagement with the traditional arts.

further reading

Kristin Scheer’s “Ikebana artist speaks at peace event 8/4”

Hebh Jamal’s “ASA Refuses to Investigate DeBeers’ Claim that Diamonds which Fund Israeli Human Rights Violations are ‘Conflict Free’”

Thank you to and my essay-writing classmates for editing this post.

Hello! I'm happy to share these these vegan cornbread bibingka with y'all made with San & Wolves’ recipe. They were meant for the Misfit Combat second anniversary party, but, true to form, I ran late and dropped them off the following day. Fortunately folks still enjoyed them!

vegan cornbread bibingka

This recipe is up there with my favorite cornbreads now (the other one otmh is also a muffin, Miss Lewis’s). I love the texture which Kym Estrada describes as “chewy and fluffy at the same time.” I also love the sweetness, which Estrada describes as being sweet for bibingka, and it is certainly in sweet cornbread territory—my cousins, if being very polite with me, would just say, “that's cake.” I favor a cakey cornbread, though. I used Full Belly Farm “bloody butcher” red cornmeal here—while I prefer the regular grocery store yellow cornmeal to this heirloom variety, I think the sweetness of the red cornmeal fits in nicely here.

There are a number of disparities in the recipe between the ingredient list displayed in the video, those listed in the description, what is spoken, and what is visible in the video. No intent to single out the recipe by mentioning this. I’m a fan! It is also one of my goals with this blog to troubleshoot recipes for/with fellow home cooks, in hopes that people feel less frustrated by the error-packed cookbook and online recipe industry that pushes out content at a breakneck pace.

I believe the ingredient list in the description is correct, except for the omission of the 214g canola oil. I didn't have Bob's egg replacer and used flax eggs (28g flax meal + 87g leftover coconut milk + 90g water). This worked fabulously IMO.

I was a little confused about the yield of this recipe—Estrada says 24 bibingkas twice, the description says 20 large muffins, and it looks like Estrada uses two large muffin tins for 12 total muffins. I believe that 12 large muffins, or 24 standard muffins, makes more sense for the ~2,271 grams batter (~189g batter per muffin).

My jumbo muffin tins were more wide and shallow than Estrada's, and the coffee filter-shaped banana leaf lining felt awkward, so I went with using two popover tins (six wells per tin). The batter went up very high in the wells, in part due to the conical leaf liner, but the lining also gave the wells extra height, so I think it evened out. I was nervous because I often do a goofy decision fatigue thing at the end of a bake, but the bibingkas did not overflow—I assume there was less dramatic rise due to the lack of wheat flour and eggs.

All who tried these, vegan and not, thought they were fantastic. I'm excited to try to make a strawberry cornbread bibingka based on San & Wolves’ soon!

flowers

Took a shot at arranging some neighborhood Matilija poppy, sage and jasmine after coming home from Bouquets to Art. Photo on left is from the second day, when it seemed to settle in, like a haircut? ’s perfume spreadsheet inspired me to infuse some of the leftover sage and jasmine trimmings in coconut oil—while this could easily go overboard, I like the idea of layering scents from the same plants in an arrangement, on the plate and on my body (infused in oil, water or alcohol). Since I wear an n95 in Sogetsu class (I work as a caregiver and attend ikebana at a senior center), it's kind of fun to immerse myself in scent at home.

A note that oils infused with fresh herbs or garlic can be a source of botulism—I plan to keep the oil in the fridge and use it topically or cook with it (heating to an internal temperature of 85°C for at least 5 minutes deactivates the botulinum toxin—but not the spore). Another option would be to acidify the infused oil using these guidelines developed at University of Idaho.

Speaking of neighborhood bouquets, mentions this neat map of invasive plant species that gets down to exact coordinates, a good resource for foraging without harming ecosystems or neighbor relations.

reading

’s “Remembering, forgetting.”

’s “memory practice”

Tomorrow will be my second time attending Bouquets to Art at the de Young and Legion of Honor with my ikebana teacher and classmates. We know I hate these museums and their collaborators, but the other half of me is very Little Mermaid “Part of Your World” about the whole thing. (Floral designers create installations based on museum artwork and architecture—gross! But also, kind of compelling to be around so many talented people.) Last year I was so moved by all the swagger, so many 70+ women in blazers and statement jewelry, and I resolved to at least not wear athleisure, even if coming straight from an overnight shift. This year I have a Talbots Petites linen blazer from Crossroads, and my most drippingly sex symbol orthopedic clogs. One of B’s most supportive partner qualities is his constant refrain of stuff like “get on the board,” so this is me getting on the “not in pajamas” board.

For your Pride month —

Harry James Hanson and Devin Antheus’s “Legends of San Francisco” and “The life & legacy of atlanta drag icon, Tina Devore.”

Antheus's Sapphomanteion: a lesbian oracle.

Martin Padgett’s “Your Fried Chicken Has Done Drag.”

eating

Breakfast with Tzintia… quesadillas with nopales from Monterey Market (I was excited to introduce her to some of the Bay’s better grocery store produce; she was pleased to see nopales sold with spines and avocadoes with edible skin). ’s tres leches, picked for being a good one to pull together in a friend's apartment. Accurate POV of me in the shirt I slept in on my overnight shift, shaking whipped cream in your apartment. The cake was to celebrate T passing her linguistics doctorate qualifying exam!

flowers

My current favorite plant’s human said to take as much as I want! Here is Sogetsu lesson 2.12 with Matilija poppy and fennel, after critique—my instructor changed the angles to make it less two-dimensional (the flowers were too forward-facing). I hate a flat-looking photo or arrangement, but of course that doesn't mean I'm not guilty. And speaking of, getting the photo angles on these assignments is really a work in progress.

Sogetsu 2.13 (style to be viewed from all angles) post-critique, with Matilija poppy and neighborhood plum.

Neither B nor I really like restaurants, so of course I was thinking about what could be fun to do at home. I had a kind of sentimental menu planned of uovo in raviolo (memory of Chef Martin being like, “IT IS AVANT GARDE!”) and tiramisu layer cake—but B had just watched the 60 Minutes thing on avian flu and wasn’t feeling the appeal of runny yolks, so I went with something vegan.

I had been wanting to make ’s miso coconut pancit with miso mushroom bagoong since reviewed it, and this seemed like a great occasion. The bagoong calls for coconut jam or maple syrup, and I'm not sure if I have tried the former before. I tried making this minatamis na bao recipe from Lalaine Manalo, and am glad I did! I had mine on the lowest burner setting for four hours (kept low while multitasking around the house). Mine wasn't quite to spreadable after that time, but tasted great.

From there, the bagoong and pancit recipes were both pretty straightforward to make, and I enjoyed both. I used the olive oil from charring a lemon in the pancit, and liked that with the richness of the coconut milk. The leftover coconut jam and bagoong have both been getting eaten by the spoon as well as spooned onto everything.

To go along with the pancit, I made the braised red cabbage with coconut green goddess dressing from In the Kusina. This recipe has a lot of beautiful components, including pickled raisins, toasted pumpkin seeds, and dill (which I forgot, but was happy to have some neighborhood bronze fennel around from a flower arrangement to use instead—and I know I'm never beating the superfluous garnish allegations, and the floral hobby is only going to egg me on!).

Other elements of this recipe felt strong, to my taste. Reyes sears the cabbage before braising it in a cup of apple cider vinegar. I'm a tough customer for this because roasted cabbage with just olive oil, salt and pepper is one of my favorite foods. I will keep Reyes's tip about searing the cabbage before roasting, but probably won't repeat the vinegar braise. The goddess dressing felt sharp to my taste when served raw, although I enjoyed it after heating the next day—and I really enjoyed Reyes's use of coconut yogurt in the dressing, which isn't a pantry staple for me, but might become one. In spite of these subjective palate differences, I think that In the Kusina might be the chic, vegetable-focused cookbook of my dreams, and I'm excited to keep cooking from it!

flan

Also over the long weekend to celebrate, I made this vegan flan from Dora's Table. The flan tasted great even though I did a terrible job of following directions, dumping everything into the pot and blending it with a stick blender (it was slightly lumpy but fine). I’m very beginner with vegan custards, and got anxious and added another 3/4t agar powder—the texture after overnight rest was good.

I got inspired for the plating by this hazelnut flan from Bruno Bertin. I used soy milk in place of dairy in the dehydrated milk leaflets--and considering that this is pretty much exactly what yuba is, I’m assuming that bean curd skin was the inspiration for dehydrated dairy milk garnishes. I used storebought unsweetened soy milk with 12g protein per cup. Might want to try sweetened soy milk next time for this purpose (as well as the powdered sugar dusting that I forgot to try).

My telepathic international best friend mentioned that she spent today writing about bean curd skin, so stay tuned for that!!

I also attempted the foam from Bertin’s recipe, substituting soy for dairy milk, and sesame seeds for pistachio. It didn't foam very well, and not sure why—please jump in if you have ideas about foams.

Overall, I’m excited about a good-tasting vegan flan, and really excited about more sweet or savory uses for the milk skin, including for an upcoming floral assignment in unconventional materials.

flowers

Another attempt at Sogetsu lesson 2.11 with Matilija poppy, redbud and fennel. When I went back for more redbud that had been blocking street parking, it had been pruned. Oh well.

Third try at 2.11 with Matilija poppy, radish from the Berkeley Bowl parking lot, and mustard from the backyard (I forgot to pick radish leaves). I think this is the best of the three in terms of the lesson goal of showing the water between the two groups of branches. I'm probably going to be in my yellow and purple era for the rest of Matilija poppy season!

Realized that the oatmeal bowl fits a large kenzan perfectly.

reading/watching/listening

Still listening to Lawrence Jackson's Chester Himes biography in Libby, and just started Andrea Long Chu’s Authority.

Ran (1985) at the Roxie Theater.

’s “I can't believe it's butter”

Hello! This week’s bake isn't completely figured out, but I’m posting to log the process. It was based on ’s stunning coconut panna cotta with pomegranate veil. Manson uses an agar veil and gelatin panna cotta, for which I subbed the agar vanilla layer from ’s 3-layer panna cotta. I doubled the panna cotta with a 13.5 oz can of coconut milk (slightly less than what recipe calls for), added 1/2t Burlap & Barrel red river coriander, and it fit perfectly in a Silikomart 90 Universo (six 90ml molds), which made it very easy to unmold. (No affiliate links in this blog, just sharing things that I find useful.) I'm also a fan of the Ateco cutters that I used for the veil, which made it easy to match veil size with panna cotta.

This was my first time attempting an agar veil. The first two tries with cranberry juice failed to completely gel, and my third try with water and gel color worked perfectly—except that I realized that there isn't a single flat surface in this apartment, so some portions were thicker than others. I based the veil on this Hai Cooking passionfruit veil video (Manson’s recipe also looks great, I just went with a weight measurement version)—these cherry and butterfly pea agar veils also look great. My only advice would be to watch the acidity, because I'm assuming that this was my issue with the cranberry veil—Jude Blereau says, “Agar will not set in Distilled and Wine vinegars, or in food containing large amounts of oxalic acid or acid such as chocolate, rhubarb or spinach. When using high acid juices such as lemon or lime, or pineapple juice you will need to double the agar – especially when freshly pressed.” For more on gelification, Jason Logsdon has an interesting post.

I enjoyed the final product, although I'm not sure about the chewy texture of my veil (maybe due to thickness). Aesthetically, I think if I want to imitate Manson's more closely, I need a thinner veil and a container that's a little rounder when inverted. My panna cotta separated slightly, which it seems could have been from various rookie mistakes. I'm at the beginning of my vegan custard journey but committed! B also ate two servings quickly and said it was fantastic.

more eating

Reem Assil's tabboulet shitta (winter tabbouli with orange and fennel). Fortunately, fennel and orange are nearly year-round in Northern California, because it isn't quite tomato season yet. In the spirit of what needed eating, I used breadcrumbs in place of bulgur. Also for conservation and laziness reasons, I kept the parsley stems and most of the mint stems. Next time I will taste while adding the lemon because I went a little heavy when combined with the other sour ingredients, and will add at least some of the orange after tossing—after bothering to supreme them, the breadcrumbs covered up the work and made them look tired. This is a fantastic recipe in a fantastic cookbook, and it made me consider what other grain/veg/fruit combinations I could treat similarly.

Radicchio and snails — this was ok, but not life-altering in the way that like, radicchio and citrus is.

flowers

Adding this section because Sogetsu study is taking up an increasing part of my brain, maybe it will also be fun for you! Going outside to look at the plants helps with my midlife grievances (weight-bearing movement and vitamin d to slow bone loss, and the more magical way that looking at plants immediately transforms my perspective). I'm new to working with poppies in general and Matilija Poppy specifically, learning this week about how to condition them by searing the stems. Most online sources say to pick at the “cracked bud” stage for cut flower purposes, but Louesa Roebuck rolls her eyes at this in Ikebana Unbound, saying that the opened bloom lasts 1-3 days, and unopened buds will continue to bloom for weeks. She does warn to take care to avoid any sleeping bumblebees around sunset.

I learned that Matilija Poppy is native to Southern California and Baja California, and was a contender for our state flower. Julie Tumamait-Stenslie says in “My Chumash Ancestral Legacy”:

We grew up hearing about Chief Matilija and his group of warriors who tried to fight off the ever-present armies. In the myth, the story goes on to tell of Chief Matilija’s daughter, Amatil, who was very much in love with the handsome warrior, Cocopah. Tragically, he was killed in the final battle. Amatil’s love was so deep and so pure that she she laid upon her lover and there she died. What remained of that love was a beautiful flower with pure white petals symbolizing their love and a yellow center to represent the everlasting brilliance of their love.. We know this flower as the Matilija Poppy.

Even though Chief Matilija was a fictional character, his curse still lives on. Many people have asked me about this. I don’t know when it began, but it focuses on the Wheeler Hot Springs several miles up the road from Matilija Hot Springs. The curse states that anyone who uses this land for ill gains shall perish. In our oral stories, we have a special one called “Gain Is All” that talks about the results of too much profit.

This is a very different framing than “fried egg flower” which now sounds like floristry in yum-yum mode. I picked some Matilija poppy in Albany today (after asking permission from the plant and resident humans—fortunately the poppy is pretty aggressive once established and people are often willing to share), as well as redbud branches and fennel. In using common sense when gathering, I am looking for what is abundant and preferably in need of pruning. I picked the redbud because the branches were hanging deeply into street parking as well as rubbing against each other—and I thought the purple would play well with the poppy's yellow. Fennel is wild and abundant in the Bay, but I don't usually notice this beautiful reddish shade.

I made an attempt at lesson 2-11, which is the first lesson that uses two kenzan to emphasize the negative space between the groups of branches. I don't think I succeeded in that task (actually I forgot about the whole negative space part lol), and I think I was cheating by using three materials—the joy of home practice!—but otherwise I like how it turned out.

SF Gate reported in 2012 that Matilija poppy can be found at Sloat Garden Centers in San Francisco, Grand Lake Ace Garden Center in Oakland, East Bay Nursery in Berkeley, Orchard Nursery in Lafayette and California Flora Nursery in Fulton. It looks like Richmond’s Curious Flora and Berkeley Hort also have it.

reading/watching

Woman in the Dunes (1964) — watching or rewatching all the Hiroshi Teshigahara (his father founded Sogetsu ikebana)

’s “Pies, loneliness, pies”

’s “Gaza Genocide Guacamole, The sacred Onion, and other food stories”

’s “In touch: Matilija poppy”

’s “PLANTCRAFT: Ashia Ajani Mulls Over Mullein”

Other facts I've learned recently: the California Endive Farms website is very particular in distinguishing between the pronunciation of two chicories: “curly endive” or “n-dive,” which is a frilly, field-grown variety; and “California endive” (typically called Belgian or French… it's all branding), pronounced “on-deev,” which is forced like rhubarb—the final growth occurs in the dark, contributing to the smooth oval shape and blanched color. (The forced variety also comes in the burgundy and white that you see in other chicories.)

These bitter greens really feel like what my body is craving, and while I try to avoid spouting health claims over here, I’m happy to hear that they might be beneficial for anemia—I'm always looking for dietary sources to go along with my prescribed iron (molasses, sorghum syrup and offal being other favorites, although I haven't been eating the last much due to prices and exposure to carnivore diet people, who are insufferable and also take all the nicest farmer’s market offal for their dogs).

While I'm tentative about fanning a vegetable—in California Grown territory where everyone and their mother has a MOU with Israel, it's almost as poorly considered as fanning a celebrity or politician—so far chicories seem like an okay thing to get into (always checking FoodPrint to see if I'm missing something glaring). California Endive Company may be using the same influencer playbook as much of other California ag, but I haven't yet found anything terrible like the land sinking/subsidence, labor atrocities and directly funding the IDF that come along with California pistachios and almonds, for instance. Despite not quite having the personality that would invite paid endive farm tours, I am jealous of those bloggers.

Eaten this week: winter endive salad with meyer lemon vinaigrette. A subject for a future post (or please chime in here if you know more) is the seasonality of chicories. I keep reading about them as a winter crop, and in other cases as year-round. It seems that, like collards, they are sweeter with the frost—and I assume that, also like brassica, might require less pest management in the winter (for the ones that grow outside). The last time I was at Berkeley’s Monterey Market though, I saw both organic and conventional castelfranco radicchio, among many other stunning organic and local chicories—so not sure how important the winter designation is for this salad. I'd love more clarification in general when something is labeled a seasonal crop about the reason—like is it because otherwise it is getting airfreighted, or is it not that serious.

The castelfranco options at Monterey Market.

Estela’s endive salad, made unprettily and without the specific fancy cheeses/vinegars. I saw this simplified and potentially vegan version from Perry Santanachote afterwards, and it also looks great.

more eating

Baby artichokes and B’s turkey meatballs. He's been doing a lot of our staples (beans, rice, cabbage, pasta), leaving me to try out new vegetable recipes and bake.

Jane Grigson’s strawberry shortcake (I’ve always winged it with this recipe, adding way more cream and making closer to a drop biscuit than a photogenic, vertically plated shortcake—but I like starting here). Added 1/2t Burlap & Barrel cured sumac to the berries.

reading

’s “Deadly Work for High-end Poultry” — horrific news about Mary’s Chicken brand.

On recipe attribution: ’s “Culinary Genealogy” and ’s “Recipes in the Age of Meme Capitalism”

’s “Feasts of Fiction: Recipes from Literary Legends”

’s “A Short Lexicon of Coffee Buzzwords”

’s “A step-by-step guide on how Gaza's population bake bread”

From 2020: ’s “On Storytelling,” Ruby Tandoh's “The Food of Care Homes,” ’s interview with , “The Case for Letting the Restaurant Industry Die.”

Price says that you can bake the cake in a 9x13” pan or as three 7” layers. I baked mine in a half sheet pan, and found that I could Frankenstein together three 9” layers using ’s method, with zero scraps (assembled in a 9x3” deep pan). Pickowicz shows how to make three 8” layers from a half sheet pan, but I have found that cutting nearly two 9” layers for top and bottom, and then filling in the middle layer and the corner of the bottom layer with the remaining scraps, works fine for my purposes.

I soaked the layers with coffee syrup made with Joanne Chang’s method, using Cafe Du Monde’s coffee and chicory blend, using 3T per layer/9T total. For the icing, I swapped 15g chicory and coffee blend for the same amount of powdered sugar. This does add texture to the icing, but not enough to bother me. If you don't want the texture, I imagine it would also be good if you subbed brewed coffee in place of water in the first step.

I made an extra batch of icing, and ended up using about half of it. This cake was good served cold—not like how sometimes cold buttercream (especially vegan) can seem like a mouthful. And actually, I didn't get a chance to try much at room temp, but I might prefer the sweetness balance cold.

For future variations, I'm thinking of 's use of chicory, coffee, sesame and prunes. Next time, I might try her prune espresso butter and Pickowicz’s sesame crunch (with aquafaba) for fillings.

This was my best pop up at Tamarack so far because there was some meeting of librarians upstairs, who picked the day based on the pop up. I was like, “wow who are all these lovely individuals, I know the DSA doesn't buy cake like this.” Unfortunately they haven't booked their next meeting yet or I would schedule around them!

more eating

Bolillos with Tzintia. We used a combination of King Arthur and Dora's Table recipes. The King Arthur one, from their Big Book of Bread, doesn't appear closely edited—it lists “until no dry patches of flour remain” in steps 2 and 3 (sorry, pet peeve). We ended up using more of the Dora's method because I didn't want to lug my baking stone, cast iron skillet and pizza peel to T’s. Unfortunately, I brought a pyrex pie plate for steaming and, you all know where this is going, exploded it all over T’s oven. (Dora's recipe does specify to use a metal plate.) Yes I am allegedly graduating culinary school this month but I was getting off an overnight shift. 🤷 At least no one was hurt and we enjoyed the bolillos!

Canal House shaved asparagus and arugula salad, with style “anchovy” breadcrumbs. I thought the shaved asparagus might be a way to showcase purple asparagus without cooking out its color, but didn't think through that green insides detail. I need to try to do them like .

Meyer lemon, moscato and brown sugar marmalade.

reading/watching

Sculptures By Sofu—Vita (1963)

’s “Grocery Update: May Day 2025 Edition”

’s “On coffee's McCarthy era part 1”

For this week's vegan baking highlight, I made hibiscus buns based on ’s kouign-amann scraps in Sift. The leftover dough was from Brod & Taylor’s vegan croissant recipe, using King Arthur climate blend flour as usual. Lamb's recipe calls for 350g scraps—I had 475g and proceeded with the recipe as if it was 350g.

The other ingredients in Lamb's recipe are 50g melted butter, 100g sugar, and “10g/2 tsp fine salt, decrease to taste.” Last time I made this recipe, I used the full amount, cockily thinking that no one likes saltier desserts than me, and found it almost inedible. This time I used 5g salt, along with the salt in the Miyoko's butter (it's on the lighter end of salted butters), and maybe a pinch in the leftover hibiscus sugar that I used for about half of the sugar. This was better for me!

I was going to do Lamb's kouign-amann shaping, but got lazy about buttering and sugaring both sides of squares, and instead buttered and sugared one side of the full rectangle before rolling up like a cinnamon roll. This worked fine.

I’m grateful to Lamb for writing this recipe out because a lot of directions for laminated scraps are like, “just vibe it, baker.” I prefer to have something exact to work with or against though, so appreciate having this point to riff from.

more eating

’s cornmeal olive oil cake with jam swirl, made vegan for the next UC Master Food Preserver Save the Seasons newsletter.

Leftover asparagus and radicchio salad with vegan cambleu and caesar dressing with “anchovy” paste.

vegan koukou sabzi, also a rec. I was amazed at how egglike this was! I started with 8 cups of leek tops, green garlic tops and garlic chives, and cooked those down 35 minutes to 2 cups, until sweetened but not fully caramelized. From there, I added 6 cups of julienned radicchio—could have used a bit less but it worked out.

B’s fried catfish and spaghetti. Invasive Chesapeake Bay wild blue catfish, caught hook and line, bought from Berkeley’s Monterey Fish. We will be observing Fish Friday more regularly now that we learned it's for a cause!

I did salad and dessert: Jesse Szewczyk’s asparagus and endive salad with comté cream. Diana Rattray biscuit pudding with leftover shortcake, crème anglaise with jimmy red bourbon, and Michelle Polzine six-hour roasted strawberries (inspired by Whitney Otawka to add 1t fennel seed to the sugar).

The strawberries were dry-farmed albion from Sea Level Farms in Corralitos. I'm happy to have a special purpose for them, and hope to make many more batches this summer (weather permitting—it’s an unseasonably cool 58F today, and I didn't notice the 250F oven heating the apartment).

Same biscuit pudding recipe, this time with last week's vegan spice bun. Added 1/2t salt, baked in 10” cast iron skillet, also served with crème anglaise and roasted strawberries. B said, “I don't know if it's the best thing I've ever had, but it's definitely in the running.” This is why we get along.

reading/watching

’s “My Favorite Restaurant Served Gas” on ’s recommendation. Followed by ’s “Craft Advice with Kiese Laymon.”

’s “For Your Baking Era” — appreciating Mayfield Hewett's gentle hosting advice, even though it isn't something we do at all. Although I did just get some (nice) Birkenstock felt slippers from the Buy Nothing group, with the idea that my friend who came over once recently to bake might come over again. And then we could both have slippers, instead of both walking around in socks because I was embarrassed I didn't have something to offer her.

Charles Burnett’s The Annihilation of Fish (1999) — finally watched, and it is soo good. (It's on Kanopy, and the Roxie is playing it again 5/14.)

This stout bun, which also includes molasses and browning, was fantastic with cheese (vegan included). As someone who doesn't consume much alcohol, I really enjoyed this combination of deep and intense flavors in baked form. The cheeses we tried were Wisconsin dairy cheddar, as well as vegan Violife cheddar slices, Rebel truffle brie, Rebel honee pistachio chèvre, and Rind classic cambleu—thank yooou Gordon for grabbing me a couple expired brie and the cambleu which wasn't on the shelf yet! All were good.

I think the bun and cheese combo is a great one to do vegan because the combination makes up for what either may be lacking. My bun was overbaked (should have followed the recipe), and benefited from the fat and creaminess of cheese. Meanwhile, the bun distracts from the cheese not being a 100% match for dairy, while balancing and bringing out the funkiness.

For more background on Thomas’s work, I really enjoyed this interview with in . For more on bun and cheese, I enjoyed Nylah Lee’s “Bun and cheese: The Jamaican answer to the hot cross bun.” Always here for a pagan origin story—I didn't know the cross as a lunar symbol! (Although I was loyal to We’Moon planners in the ‘90s, so it's possible I forgot.)

While the hot cross bun's origins are typically associated with Easter and Good Friday, its history extends beyond Christian traditions. In ancient Assyria, the cross-marked bread was believed to be an offering to the Goddess Ishtar in Babylon. These were often decorated by markings symbolising the Moon's four quarters. Similarly, British hot cross buns were also associated with superstitions and folklore, which states that a bun baked on Good Friday would never spoil, and that keeping one in the house would protect it from fire and ensure that all bread baked in the house would turn out well. Now, Jamaican tradition has bound the treat to a looser interpretation of "protection" as a symbol of fellowship, or "breaking bread" with friends and family.

I brought the spice bun on a picnic along with a menu that was loosely inspired by doing a web search for “ploughman's lunch with asparagus,” and finding this menu from L.M. Browning:

A Spring Plate

A Dozen Halved Fresh Figs

English Cheddar Cheese

Halved Hardboiled Eggs *10-12 mins so yoke is slightly soft

Blanched Asparagus Drizzled with Olive Oil and a pinch of Kosher Salt

Spring Onions

Sliced Raw Fennel with Olive Oil

Drizzle Sliced French Baguette

Serve with a Dry White Wine

Our picnic included:

Em-i-lis’s caramelized fennel, leek, and orange salad with Muaddi Craft Distillery arak, and my favorite thing, Burlap & Barrel coriander sugar

Emma Laperruque’s open-faced asparagus sandwich with backyard mustard blooms… I think giving the whole mustard “rabe” this treatment would be good too

Hard-boiled eggs

Bun and cheese

Rebecca Frey’s strawberry shortcake with King Arthur climate blend, and Ashleigh Shanti’s sumac-forward kitchen pepper in the macerated strawberries

Nonalcoholic drink… De Soi spritz italiano. I know very little about beverages, but am reading that spritzes don't contain citrus—this one is citrus-flavored though. Also, I meant to get nonalcoholic but didn't mean to get adaptogens. Too healthy!! Should have gone with sparkling water.

The picnic was an excuse to hang out under Lake Merritt’s blossoming cherries which are just getting started, before walking over to Grand Lake Theatre to watch Sinners. It was a nice Easter weekend date!

more eating

’s toasted sesame and citrus wedding cake. Made 1/3 of the recipe for our five-year anniversary, and to test flavors for a friend's wedding. (I dropped some off on their porch, and just got a text, “Best cake ever! Truly delicious. We both love it.”) This was super fun to make, and I learned a lot from Pickowicz's method of baking thin cake layers on sheet pans and then building the cake in deep pans. I thought the method would lead to more scraps, but I was able to get every bit of cake from a half sheet pan into my 9x3” round cake pan—and felt secure storing the assembled cake in the pan in our 3/4 size apartment refrigerator. While we learned about storing partially assembled cake in pans in culinary school, we didn’t build them in the pan—IMO this is the way now.

The charred citrus compote was my favorite part of this cake, but I'm also thinking of replacing it with ’s persimmon-ginger compote for M + R’s October wedding. I don't think there's a wrong answer here.

Luxurious scrambled eggs with the extra yolks from the cake. Sautéed radicchio and radicchio caesar with the pretty greens that I attempted a More Than Cake-style decoration with, but abandoned because mine did not look like the chic cookbook or instagram posts. The horror, I know.

reading

I generally feel like it comes across as more sincere to share one or two links, and that sharing a dozen posts—especially from this platform—risks looking a bit desperate for engagement or cliquish. Oh well because I enjoyed a lot of stuff this week! I hope you find something you enjoy here too.

’s “To Cook Without Folding”

’s “Easter Flavours from Africa & Beyond”

’s “Considering Food Scarcity's Closeness”

’s “A Mushroom-Based Condiment That Captures the Essence of Filipino Cuisine” — to try!

’s “Teaching Poor People About Food Is Not the Answer”

’s “Grocery Update- Every Clerk Can Govern: An Oral History Series.”

’s “Portrait of a Palate: Karuna Long”

’s “Chocolate cake with black rice, beetroots and a berry mascarpone frosting”

’s “Art! Food Conferences! TV! Recession Food!”

’s “Hey Mama, Your Californian Ideology is Showing”

’s “When Did We All Become Afraid Of Being Amateurs?”

I have been enjoying Emma Laperruque’s asparagus with soft-boiled eggs and anchovy breadcrumbs, and wondered about fishless options. I hoped this would be a good application of ’s vegan anchovy paste, and it was! I honestly couldn't tell the difference unless I was focusing on it. And then the difference was mostly clear because my version of Tausch's paste was very half-assed… I tossed the paste ingredients in the skillet without combining first, and my umeboshi paste was quite old and crusty with big salt crystals from evaporation I guess. Still worked fine! This was a victory to me, because some vegan salads are too light and don't hit me over the head with umami the way I prefer. Happily, this checked my boxes for fat, calories, umami and depth.

Eaten with eggs—not trying to lie to the internet with the photo (although that is fun), just got a better shot without eggs. And it was 2am on Saturday night and I was questioning my life choices about why I was concerned about getting an acceptable pic for my blog.

more eating

Mole with Tzintia, and a lesson in draping the tortilla with care.

Shaved asparagus salad from Bryant Terry’s Vegetable Kingdom. This recipe incorporates fun visual techniques (shaved asparagus, shaved walnuts that look like cheese). I was disappointed that the shaved asparagus seemed to lose half its volume as soon as tossed with the lemon and dressing… might try a less acidic dressing next time.

Vegan baked egg dish based on Mana Shamshiri's kookoo sabzi. I flew too close to the sun in terms of clearing the fridge out on this one—used a bit too much dill for my tastes. I think I followed the custard aspect faithfully, but didn't achieve a very firm set. Would welcome any advice especially related to flax/garbanzo custards!

Full of Plants okonomiyaki fries for freezer and fridge clear-out. Tried baking the fries, which were half freezer burn, on an oiled rack over a sheet pan for the first half of baking, followed by on parchment for second half (B’s idea when I asked him what I might do so they didn’t drown in freezer burn), it worked out!

It's our five-year anniversary (basing the date on the cherry blossoms on Lake Merritt). I'm most of the way through making ’s toasted sesame and citrus wedding cake—it’s currently wrapped up for two days in the fridge before frosting. Made as a third batch in a 9x3” round pan, this cake also serves as testing for a friend’s wedding. As says, when life gives you lemons, host!

reading/watching

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Ikebana (1957).

’s “Let's talk about palm oils. The real palm oils.”

’s “Grocery Update #61: The Tariff Shell Game.”

Writing advice from Julia Tausch, Alicia Kennedy and Lucy Sante.