Lemon Pistachio Biscotti

For the last month, I've been working at a bakery a few days a week as a temporary helper during the holiday season. The existence of this very blog would attest: this is the realization of a small but very persistent dream of mine. And even with the heavy pans and sore feet and pounds and pounds of bread dough to cut and knead, bake and bag, I have yet to become disenchanted.

When there's five of us standing around the long kneading table, pushing dough and watching snow fall out the front windows, I don't think of what I'm doing as work. The world beyond the arched wood rafters of the bakery fades, and I lose sense of passing time. But I do wonder: would I feel the same if I did this every day?

Last week my mom and sister and I had our annual Christmas bake. I took charge of the biscotti, those dry, crunchy Italian cookies that are made for dipping in coffee. The process for these is rather drawn out compared to other cookies, as one batch hits the oven three separate times before it's done. I may have considered this a rather tiresome to-do had I not helped bake, slice, and package hundreds of biscotti just a few days prior. Woah, perspective.

At the bakery, each of these biscotti slabs is about the size of an eight-month-old. We cut into them with long bread knives on extra large cutting boards before laying the oblong cookies on their sides and sliding them back into the rotating rack oven. Halfway through the second bake, we stand at its hot open mouth and burn our fingers flipping each cookie.

And I'm hardly complaining. I think I could be happy in a bakery, making my living -- day after day, year after year -- among chocolate chips and the smell of warm bread. But if I had to choose between baking by trade or baking by hobby, I feel quite certain of which I'd pick.

I want to bake in small batches. I want to cut my small biscotti on a small cutting board with a small serrated knife, and I want to pull them from the oven as Johnny Mathis sings to us through the record player. I want to look out the window and see pine trees. And I want to finish the cookies by lamplight because the sky is swimming with gray clouds -- or in this case, fog.

If I had to choose, that's what I'd choose.

Lemon Bundt Cake

I'm telling you, I can't get enough of this pan.

One day this past spring, my co-worker and I decided to plan a Thanksgiving lunch at the office. The idea hatched solely from Maggie's desire to get rid of the adult turkey that had been taking up residence in her freezer, but once everyone was on board, it became the event of the week. We were excited at the prospect of eating together as a group. Even more, we were excited to FEAST. 

I dibsed dessert, thinking vaguely of pumpkin pie. But when the day drew near, I didn't want pumpkin. I wanted lemon. The answer came to me at once: lemon bundt cake. I was thrilled to have pegged a dessert that was all at once festive, springy, and entirely dependent on my recently acquired and most adored baking vessel. That's right, folks. The bundt is back.

The recipe I was following called only for lemon zest in the cake batter. I added some fresh lemon juice, and would advise you to do the same. It's cake, so you'll never achieve the intense lemon flavor of, say, lemon bars. But you can try.

I love that lemon valley through the middle of the cake. So rustic-looking, until...

Flipped and flawless! 

Lemon lacquered! 

I had some raspberry icing left over from the cupcakes we'd made that weekend. How fortuitous that lemon and raspberry are one of the winningest combinations in dessert-dom, and that the raspberry icing had the consistency most suited for wrapping around the contours of lemony cake crust, the viscosity fit for clinging to its sharp descents and stopping like stalactites before meeting the glass surface. That was the funnest part: pouring the icing as equitably as I could, then stepping back and watching it take its course. That right there is the work of sugar, lemon juice, jam, and gravity, all conspiring to make something gorgeous, and make me look like a pro.

The cake was a hit. It was bright and refreshing, and it took us through a few mid-afternoon slumps. On one such afternoon I cut a piece and took it back to my desk to eat while I worked. As I set my plate down, I was struck by the contrast between crumb, crust, and icing, and the infinitesimal boundaries between them. I saw that flawless delicacy that can often only be found in nature, like the curve of the lunule on your thumb (oh, words!). Then I became self-aware, and knew that while I was pondering beauty and nature and metaphysics (in a very generous interpretation of the word), to anyone on the outside, I was just a lady staring at cake. And so concluded my study.

But I have to say, I think I was on to something...

Lemon, Parsley & Pears

And butter. So much butter.

Last week my boyfriend and I were tucking into lemon pepper chicken with sweet red peppers and asparagus when I realized that he has cooked me dinner several times now (that was one of them) and I have cooked him dinner zero times. In my quick defense, I did make him a kick-ass chocolate peanut butter cake for his birthday, but come on - I've never made someone dinner before? Well now, I had to do something about that.

So I looked through cookbooks, browsed recipes online...and came up with what I thought was a simple, light menu. For dinner it would be pasta with parsley and parmesan. Before I go any further, I should mention Megan's fun food lesson of the week: there are two types of parsley. Flat leaf parsley, also known as Italian parsley, seems to be ideal in most situations. It's bolder, as they say. Unfortunately, I saved my parsley research for after I got back from the grocery store with curly leaf parsley. And I was going to use it anyway - bold schmold - but a lack of lemons found me back at the store where I ran into flat leaf parsley for 99 cents. So, there we go.

Dinner
Cooked spaghetti and tossed it with - brace yourself - just short of a stick and a half of unsalted butter, chopped parsley, parmesan cheese, fresh lemon juice, and a bit of garlic salt.

Holy butter! I had a hard time melting 12 tablespoons of butter, but one pound of spaghetti is a LOT, and butter melts down quite a bit. In the end, the parsley and lemon shone through, making the pasta light and fresh with little bursts of the sharp parmesan. Though the butter refused any of the spotlight in the pasta, it greeted us when we reached the bottom of our plates, reminding us that there was indeed some fat in this thing.

Dessert
Halved and peeled Bosc pears and arranged them cut side up in a baking dish. Drizzled with lemon juice and sprinkled with vanilla sugar (I mixed 1 tsp vanilla extract with 1/4 c sugar, but I could've used a bit more vanilla). Dotted with butter and put a couple tablespoons of water in the bottom of the pan before putting it in a 375 degree oven. Roasted for 30 minutes, turned the pears, then roasted for another 15-20 minutes. We topped our pears with vanilla ice cream and drizzled the juice from the bottom of the pan over the ice cream. Oh my.

Lying in bed that night, I could feel my body's confusion as it tried to make sense of all the butter I'd just consumed. I could feel it asking, What am I supposed to do with all of this? If you'd like to know what this is like, simply incorporate 1.5 sticks of butter into your evening meal. And you know what goes really well with butter? Lemon, parsley and pears.