The antithesis of a dream deferred

For the first time, I’m using my blog as a journal. Previously, I’ve been very self-important in my postings, writing about things that I felt others would find interesting, or should find interesting. But I’m over that. And hey, since 99% of the people who read this thing already love me, they’ll probably find this interesting anyway.

I’m at a professional development conference for English composition instructors, sponsored by the academic publishing company I work for. This may sound like a drag to you, but as you may recall I hold my B.A. in English, so I’m very much enjoying being around so many other people who have too much to say. We created memes by translating modern song lyrics into Old English and writing them on a picture of a Shakespearean-looking dude. Our keynote speaker discussed using creative nonfiction to teach students about the writing process, rather than using the tired old rhetorical modes. (this is how you write a description. this is how you write a compare/contrast paper. this is how you kill yourself because none of this is engaging or relevant. by the way, this here is a narrative essay.) I’m socializing with our authors, seeding business, having a blast and loving my job.

Until dinner. In the hour and a half before dinner, I participated in a technology happy hour, where we feed instructors cocktails and make them listen to us talk about all the digital solutions we offer to enhance their classroom. I had 5 minutes with each of the 4 groups to go through my assigned product. Brevity is not among my strengths, hence the existence of this blog, but adjusting on the fly is, so I made do just fine.

After the technology dog and pony show, I piled a plate with every item from the buffet, because I turn into a goat when there’s a buffet to eat from, and sat down at the first table inside the dining area doors. Greetings and niceties from the instructors at the table, crab and corn chowder not reaching my face quickly enough, and then this lady had the nerve to say, “When you were presenting today, even in that 5 minutes I could tell, you’re an English teacher.”

God dammit. Thanks for justifying my deepest fear – I’m never going to fall in love with what I’m doing, because as long as I’m not writing or teaching writing, it’s not what I was born to do.

I’ve thought countless times about going back to school for my M.A. in Linguistics or Rhetoric and pursuing my original career path of being a college instructor, but, you know, life happened. And now I think about things that are way too adult, such as being fully vested in my 401K and never being able to live without the luxuries a non-teaching salary affords me. And of course, there’s the element of insight into higher education as a profession that I’ve gotten from my current job. Believe me, it’s bleaker than you think, especially in English.

At one community college in Texas, the only state that actually  has their shit together in higher education, enrollment in developmental writing courses increased from 600 in Spring 2012 to 850 in Fall 2012. 850 students that graduated high school and were encouraged to go to college, but can’t write a basic essay. Some that can’t string sentences into a paragraph or even construct a grammatically correct sentence. Some that are reading at a 6th grade level. All that need quality teachers who give a shit and aren’t jaded by the sudden plummet in student success, but motivated by it.

And I’m selling textbooks.

The woman who called me an English teacher is the director of the composition program at a large Texas two-year, which – if you only know one thing about American higher education, let it be this – means something. She’d hire a me. But it was her friend that truly inspired me. I’ve always felt I had to justify choosing the publishing route over the education route, because it was the selfish, less valiant move, until she said, “Honey, there’s always your next life. Hell, teaching is my third life!” And she wasn’t talking about reincarnation. Maybe I don’t have a career; just varied interests grounded in the same skills and talents that will always point North. Until I get there.

Like all quality writing, this rant doesn’t have a conclusion. It’s taken me to a different place than I was when I started, and that’s all anyone can ask from a writer, or a reader. Maybe you don’t get it, or maybe I just sound too whiny to empathize with. Or maybe you’re also thinking that your 20-year-old self wasn’t as idealistic as you thought. And that the bills will always find a way to get paid.

I bet I sleep quite well tonight.

Yup, we’re STILL talking about 50 Shades of Grey

Given that I work in educational publishing, I should probably be listening to something more newsy and intellectual during my commute, but instead I choose 99.7′s Fernando and Greg in the Morning. I’ve found that they just piss me off way less often than other FM morning shows, and AM shows put me to sleep, which is not a good look at 7:30 a.m. on the San Mateo bridge. What does piss me off about Fernando and Greg, and this really applies to all morning shows, is that you clearly have to be below a certain level of intelligence to call in and get selected to be on the air with whatever unoriginal opinion you feel is profound enough to share. I know there are a lot of dummies out there, but I don’t think I’m close enough to the top intelligence percentile of people who listen to that show to determine that everyone else is dumber than I am. And yet, that sure is how it seems.

So every morning I arrive at work befuddled over all the stupid things people said in response to the ”would you” questions Fernando and Greg (mostly Greg) posed during my drive, wishing I cared enough to attempt calling in to show up all the dummies with an opinion that people may not have heard of yet. Yesterday morning, it was the 50 Shades of Grey convo that sent me through the roof.

The context: Fernando sent Greg’s mother, Ginger, a copy of 50 Shades of Grey for her birthday.

Background: Ginger is a fabulously old-fashioned Texas farmer’s wife who makes sassy, loving comments about her son being fruity in San Francisco. She raises chickens and calves (who then get sent to McDonald’s, as she puts it), tells embarrassing stories about Greg as a kid, and is one of the main reasons I listen to the show. Down Home with Ginger is a weekly segment in which they chat with her live on the air for 5 or so minutes and she never disappoints.

Setup: Greg claims it was inappropriate for Fernando to send Ginger 50 Shades of Grey. (By the way, I refuse to abbreviate it as “50 Shades” as many have done – there’s nothing endearing about it that calls for a cute nickname, so deal with the full name for the duration of this post.) Greg then asks the audience, “Would you let your mother read 50 Shades of Grey?” And a shitstorm of lameness ensues.

“OMG, I would NEVER let my mom read that, it’s sooo racy!”

“I’m 35 years old and I was embarrassed to read it, I’d die if my mom was reading it!”

“His mom said last week that she doesn’t get “hot” anymore, so what’s the point of sending her 50 Shades of Grey?”

Oh. My. God. Dummies, everywhere. Let’s directly refute the above and then move on to my own thoughts.

“OMG, I would NEVER let my mom read that, it’s sooo racy!” – It’s so cool that you control what your mom reads, I bet she loves that aspect of your relationship. And yeah it is super racy, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for them to actually bang, which took about 75 pages. Yawn.

“I’m 35 years old and I was embarrassed to read it, I’d die if my mom was reading it!” – If you’re embarrassed to read a book that involves sex, you’ve got much bigger problems than whether your mom’s reading it or not. The content didn’t hold a candle to what you saw in one season of Sex and the City. I really don’t know why everyone’s flipping their shit as if Christian and Anastasia are doing things that are so out there – they really aren’t. No one even gets tied up until close to the end. Again, yawn.

“His mom said last week that she doesn’t get “hot” anymore, so what’s the point of sending her 50 Shades of Grey?” – Oh boy. OH BOY. People who read this book just to get off are the dummiest dummies of them all and give reading a bad name. Please just stop and go watch a porno, and leave all the delicious books to those of us that appreciate the art of reading. K thanks. Oh and stop assuming that everyone’s as dumb as you and won’t want to read the book if it’s not to “get hot”.

If I had control over what my mother read, I actually would ensure that she never touched 50 Shades of Grey. Because it’s the worst effing book I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading and I’d never risk being the reason my well-read, intelligent mother became just a smidge dumber. People, I spent 5 years reading and analyzing and writing and repeating, and have a useless piece of beige paper to prove it; I would not lie to you about a book. It’s absolutely awful. I don’t understand how people could get into the sexy factor when I couldn’t get past the awful factor.

The characters are un-relatable and un-sympathetic; I also couldn’t picture either main character, even though Christian is described physically many, many times. The author’s voice is so obviously British that you can never picture the setting, whether it’s supposed to be Portland or Seattle or Georgia, where no one eats “supper”. Facts were skewed to make things seem more romantic to the audience, which just means easier for the author to write about – an intern at an independent publishing house in Seattle could NEVER afford to live in an apartment above Pike Place, so let’s make her best friend filthy rich and have her parent’s foot the bill for the place. Totally normal, right? In Seattle? Doubtful. But that’s what British people probably think of Americans – everywhere is Manhattan.

Back to the point – should moms be “allowed” to read 50 Shades of Grey? Duh. Moms pushed 6-10 lb humans out of their bodies, they can do or read whatever the eff they want, in my opinion. In fact, 50 Shades of Grey was the May selection for my book club, which includes my mom, several aunts, mother-in-law-type, grandmother-in-law-type, and two of my cousins. Fuck it, right?

So let’s all stop giving two shits about 50 Shades of Grey, ok? It’s horribly written and not worth the paper it’s printed on, or anyone’s time. Way to make a housewife obsessed with Twilight a millionaire, America. Well done, dummies.

Review of The Hunger Games, sort of

I avoided reading The Hunger Games, just as I did Harry Potter (I’ll pause while you gasp with shock), largely due to my affinity for what I like to call “real books,” like the ones I was forced to read in 19th century British Lit in college. This is not to say that all historic fiction counts as a real book to me – I roll my eyes at Jane Austen, who’s overuse of conversation bores me, and to this day I have never finished one of her books. In real books, you have to re-read sentences and whole paragraphs because there is so much meaning and depth layered in the words that you cannot possibly comprehend it all the first time around. The characters in real books are incomparable and unique and can only exist within the pages they were written. You’d never come across a real-life Charles Marlow, because he’s not a person but an idea within a context that Conrad cooked up, put a human name to, and made you feel compassion for. I live for real books, the ones that push me into a state of introspection so dark I only dare go silently while curled up on the couch alone.

But here’s the problem with real books – they’re bloody difficult to get through on your own. I need that college-style discussion to keep my thoughts evolving, and while my newly-founded Book Club is awesome, most aren’t partial to the level of darkness I like to venture into while reading. Is that a happy ending I smell? Pass. Bring on the heartbreak.

So I’ve turned to light fiction as of late to satisfy my hunger for books. (No pun intended, honestly. I tried to reword it but this just felt right.) The Hunger Games has forced me to lower my nose a little and accept a book for what it’s worth, which in this case is several hours of vivid imagination coming to life between my hands. I was pleasantly suprised by how engrossed I was. I know the whole world has been talking about this trilogy for forever now, but most of the people I know who read it were book nerds or teacher types, and I’m neither, so I didn’t bother listening to the raves. I can’t just pick up any old book and read it through, it has to speak to me personally or I’ll just toss it back on the shelf and turn on the TV.

What intrigued me about the Hunger Games that was lacking for me in Harry Potter was the simple ability to instantly relate to it on a basic level. It’s simple really – in Harry Potter you have to create every last detail in your mind because you’re not only in an imaginary, magical world, you’re also in England, the land whose language and customs confuse Americans more than any other because we ignorantly assume they would be more like us. That’s what makes Harry Potter books wonderful for some, but for me, I need a more human angle at the base. In The Hunger Games, you have to learn some new vocabulary and wrap your head around the society of Panem and District 12, but hunting rabbit is still hunting rabbit and there’s no spell to learn that will disarm your enemy on the spot. (I didn’t read the books, but I sure as hell enjoyed all the movies.) I liked the simplicity of it from the start.

The tipping point was that Mike read it first. He’s an intelligent guy, with a lot of books under his belt, but hasn’t been a “read-for-fun” person since I’ve known him. He flew through The Hunger Games, and would frequently text me about how “real shit was getting in the Games”. I knew I had to give it a try.

While I was drawn in by the simplicity and utterly human feel to it, it took me awhile to get past the reading level. Why spend paragraphs explaining how Katniss feels when her actions and language clearly say it? Once the Games started though, it became necessary to go through the motions with her, almost as if in real time, because there was an urgency to her every thought and movement that we had to follow exaclty to remain enthralled. So I got over that criticism quickly, and also by remembering that this book is not meant for college graduates who studied English.

What held my interest throughout the story was that even though I knew Katniss won the Hunger Games before I opend the book (I had read the back of Catching Fire to make sure it was indeed the second and not thrid in the trilogoy before buying it), that fact grew to be of less and less significance. And not because I was so busy trying to figure out her relationship with Peeta, which seemed entirely predictable to me right through the end, or because my mind was weighing on the sociological examinations of the book, which wasn’t necessary because 1) Katniss laid them all out for us (had it been a “real book” we would have had to deduce much more on our own); and 2) I read Lord of the Flies – I’ve heard this story before, if you’re talking about the bigger picture, and the similarities were uncanny.

What held my interest was the unexplainable fact that I just. Couldn’t. Put it down. It wasn’t particulary emotional, which seemed to be a deliberate attempt by the author to support Katniss’s character and the believability that she could win. It wasn’t particulary action-packed either, save for the fight scenes in the arena, which were fewer and less gruesome than I expected. And it wasn’t particularly thought-provoking, in my opinion, since the whole “meaning of society” theme is a little one-dimensional for my tastes. By that, I mean that a conversation about what The Hunger Games is trying to say about society would consist of a lot of people agreeing with each other and would be over fairly quickly.

And still, I stayed up late to find out if she reunited with Peeta and I hurried home from work to find out if she keeps him alive. It just had that quality, that je ne sais quoi, that kept me intrigued from page one despite my hesitations.

In short, lose your preconceived notions and judgments and get lost in The Hunger Games instead. If I wasn’t disappointed, you won’t be either.

Reading is sexy. It’s just science.

I started a book club. In classic Erin fashion, I’m already overwhelmed by it. I’m afraid it’s going to deter me from my other projects, such as starting a garden, continuing my adventures in canning, and obtaining abs that look like Gwen Stefani’s (I swear it’s possible). But I genuinely believe that I’ve been getting dumber ever since I graduated college and am no longer “required” to read, so I need someone to hold me accountable. Side note: this is one of college’s biggest downfalls. It teaches impressionable, new adults that knowledge is required and for a grade. I’m on the side of the fence where college is about discovering who you are and what you’re capable of, regardless of whether you need a college degree to achieve it. From what I see in my daily life on college campuses it’s become all about “retention”, which is really just a fancy word for finding the lowest common denominator to get as many students as possible through their GE requirements within the amount of time a school is willing to deal with them. But, I digress.

The truth is, I’ve always loved reading, hence the B.A. in English. Granted, I focused on linguistics and rhetoric, but I had my fair share of British lit and American short stories – and loved them all. Well, maybe not my poetry class, but that’s because poetry is super emo and only good if it was written a century or more ago. There’s nothing more delicious than devouring a book or short story and learning something new about yourself along the way. Some people might say they enjoy reading because it transports them to another time, place, or life, but for me it’s the opposite. Reading forces me into a state of introspection that I wouldn’t dare go willingly, and that makes me feel rebellious and empowered and sexy.

Also, it’s embarrassing to be the only person on Earth who hasn’t read The Hunger Games. What was I doing while everyone else was reading that book? Don’t worry, I picked up a copy the other day and it’s happening. Right after Bossypants and She’s Come Undone. And a few Ibsen plays I never got to. Ugh! Reading is exhausting.

My favorite part about the art of reading (because now I’m so intellectual that I’m an actual artist for reading) is that it in turn inspires me to write, which, if I had to entertain the idea that I might possess a talent, would be my talent. It’s difficult to admit because it will likely never come true, and because everyone’s a “writer” these days thanks to sites like WordPress and Blogspot (oh the irony), but I constantly dream of making my living off the thoughts that I put into words. I thought this pipe dream might dwindle after college, where I received an embarrassing amount of high praise for my writing, but then all you people in my cyberspace go and read these diatribes and encourage me even further. So thanks for that.

The thing is, and the thing is super corny but also true, reading will make you a better you. You’ll develop opinions about issues you had no idea existed and discover new characteristics that wouldn’t have manifested if you hadn’t spent time wondering why you loved or hated a protagonist so much. You’ll dream in color again. And most importantly, you’ll sound super smart, always. Which is my main goal in life, really. Are you fooled yet?

If I’ve inspired you to become a reader, either for the first time or again, check out www.goodreads.com. Start a book club, or join mine. Visit your local used book store, tell the clerk a little about yourself, and marvel at their ability to find you just the right book. The Book Shop in Hayward is positively wonderful at this. And stop stigmatizing reading. You don’t have to analyze Shakespeare to enrich your life with a book. Honestly, that man is barely tolerable most of the time. Non-fiction is actually way more awesome than fiction, in my opinion, and cookbooks are still books. No matter what you’re into, there’s a hundred plus books that will get your motor running. That’s the incomparable beauty of books – they’re indiscriminate and exist for nothing else than to entertain weird, little ol’ you. Soul mates are romantic to think about I suppose, but books don’t expect anything in return. They’re nurturing and generous and selfless, and for that my heart will always belong to the written word.

Croutons: Never put them on your shopping list again

And no, not because they’re a carb. Because making your own is easy, quick, and I bet you’ve got all the ingredients in your house right now. If you’re buying packaged croutons, you’re wasting money and consuming far too much salt per serving.

Since I dance on the border of health nut status, perhaps you’re surprised I don’t just omit croutons from my salad altogether. Here’s why: I’ve never seen a salad on the Food Network that doesn’t include a crunchy, salty element. Texture combinations make food exciting in your mouth, and no matter how many people tell you salt is terrible, it’s necessary for foods to taste their best. Also, croutons are delicious. (Try them in soup sometime.)

I’m about to blow your mind with this “recipe”.

1. Grab a loaf of bread. (Or, bake your own. I’ll get to that in about a month or two, I’m sure.) Any bread will do, you can even use the wheat sandwich bread you’ve got in the house right now. Since I buy bread specifically for crouton-making, I favor a pugliese or sourdough loaf from the bakery. I like a thick loaf, as opposed to thinner artisan breads like ciabatta, so when I cut it up I have a combination of pieces that have crust on them and pieces that don’t.

* Hot tip: When your sandwich bread shows minor signs of mold, instead of throwing it away like you used to, cut the moldy parts out and turn it into croutons.

2. Cut the bread into cubes, any which way works for you. I generally slice the loaf, cut each slice into thirds, hot-dog style, and cut each third into 3 or 4 cubes. Toss the cubed bread into a medium bowl.

3. Drizzle olive oil over the bread and fold together with a rubber spatula. If you don’t have a rubber spatula, go buy one. It’s my best friend in the kitchen. Get one with a wooden handle so it’s heatproof. The bread should not be soaking in oil (this will burn the croutons, fast), but merely glisten with it.

*Hot tip: We keep all of our oils and vinegars in squeeze bottles, which makes it super easy to control the amount you want to dispense. Costco sells packs of 6 for practically nothing.

4. Add your spices. Always salt and pepper, then use your imagination. My go-tos are dried oregano, dried basil, and garlic powder. This is one of the rare times in which I’ll use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic. It just works better, in my opinion.

5. Spread the oiled and seasoned bread cubes onto a cookie sheet and bake for 20 or so minutes at 375. Using a regular spatula, turn the bread over at least once during cooking. I turn mine 10 minutes in and then again at 16 minutes in. By the end of bake time, the croutons should be a light golden brown. They’ll brown a little more as they sit, so don’t overcook them by trying to get that orangey-brown look store-bought croutons have. That color is mostly preservatives anyway.

6. Let them cool directly on the cookie sheet. You want to make sure every drop of oil turns into crunchy goodness, and if you remove them from the cookie sheet right away they may not crisp up as well. Store in an air-tight container.

* Hot tip: Maybe you’ve got one of those clear, plastic jars that you keep cookies in? Why not have a crouton jar as well? (Or maybe I just eat a lot of salad.)

Boom. You’re done. And you had time to prep the salad and do the dishes while those cooked up.

Bonus recipe: Caesar salad croutons (super garlicky, no additional seasoning)

This is a little more labor-intensive, but oh-so-worth it if you’re making a Caesar salad. Slice a baguette, then cut each slice in half, hamburger-style, so you have little half moons. Brush each side with a little olive oil and bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes, turning each crouton over once during baking, a little more than halfway in. Let the croutons cool on the cookie sheet until you’re able to hold them in your hand. Peel a clove of garlic and cut it half. Rub one or both sides of the crouton with the inner side of the garlic clove. Toss them in your Caesar and enjoy! (Courtesy of Frannie, my other mommy and one amazing cook.)

Rolling pins are a pain. Try this no-roll pie crust technique.

Always on the lookout for ways to make my life easier in the kitchen, I frequently turn to Cook’s Illustrated, my bible. You used to have to either subscribe to the bi-monthly magazine or the website, which is oh-so-worth it, but I recently discovered their comprehensive cookbook in the window of my neighborhood bookstore, The Book Shop on B Street. They test techniques and recipes over and over and provide the best of the best, with introductions, explanations for every step and nostalgic illustrations. Their no-roll pie crust technique changed my life.

I hate rolling pins for a variety of reasons. Requiring a rolling pin means you also need space to roll dough out on and time to refrigerate, roll out, re-refrigerate, roll out, repeat. I also hate adding the excess flour that’s necessary when rolling dough out because it will inevitably change the texture and outcome of the dough. For pies, it’s hard to get all the dough to the exact thickness you want while maintaining a circular shape. So when I found this no-roll pie dough technique, I was elated. This only works for the bottom crust of a pie, so use this when making single-crust pies, such as pumpkin, chocolate mousse, banana cream, etc. For fruit pies, you’ll still have to roll out the top crust with that beast of a tool, the rolling pin, but you can of course use this for the bottom crust.

1. Make your dough. Any pie dough will work, but in case you’re curious, I always use an all-butter pie dough recipe. Shortening creeps me out. (Hot tip: when they say ice-cold water, they mean ICE-cold water. Don’t use cold tap water.) Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before using it.

2. Break the dough into pea-sized pieces and scatter evenly onto the bottom of a pie plate.

3. Starting in the middle, use your finger to press the dough into the pie plate.

4. As you work your way out, start pressing the dough up the sides of the pie plate.

The best part of this technique is it’s easy to control the thickness of the dough in the pie plate. Once your fingers press too deep and you can see some of the tin, just press some neighboring dough over. It’s also easy to control the thickness of certain parts of the pie. I like a lot of crust at the rim and on the sides, but a thinner crust on the bottom. This also depends on what kind of pie you’re making though.

5. Use your knuckles to push the dough snugly into the ”corners” of the pie plate. This ensures that the pie dough is directly against every inch of the pie plate, which will help the pie cook more evenly, since the filling will be distributed evenly.

6. Push the dough up the side of the tin, making sure you have about a 1-inch overhang. My photo below doesn’t have a 1-inch overhang, but you’ll see why in a second.

In lieu of an overhang, I opted for a decorative crust that I saw in Real Simple’s November 2011 issue. This required me to break out the rolling pin, but instead of flouring a large work surface, I positioned the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap to roll it out. This prevents the need for extra flour and also keeps the dough smooth, whereas rolling it out can make it stick to the surface and break up the cohesiveness of the dough. You can do this for the entire pie dough as well, but I only needed about a 4×6 area of dough rolled out.

I’m still surprised that I actually took the time to cut out pumpkins and leaves and use a wooden skewer to detail them for my decorative crust. But boy was I proud of this guy:

For some pies, such as pumpkin, which is what I was making here, you need to cook the crust beforehand. When pie dough gets warm though, it will melt into a blob in your pie plate, so you have to weight the crust before you cook it. Don’t get turned off of pre-cooking pie crust if you don’t have pie weights – foil and dry rice will work just fine.

Line the pie crust with two layers of foil, pressing the foil snugly into the edges of the crust, and fill the bottom with dry rice before cooking it.

Make sure you curve the foil around the outside edges of the crust to prevent over-browning.

Voila! My first pumpkin pie of the season.

Just another reason why I love baking – you learn something new every time you bake. Lessons learned while making this pie:

1) Fill the entire pie with rice to weight it. My crust shrunk down and could only support about 3/4 of the filling I had made, and I think this is because I didn’t properly weight it.

2) Don’t be afraid to make the bottom crust thin. You can always add the excess dough you remove, but a too-thick crust won’t cook properly and will be less buttery and flaky than you want.

3) It might not actually be necessary to pre-cook a crust all the way for pumpkin pie. I wasn’t pleased with the way the crust turned out, and I’ve used that pie dough recipe a dozen times, so I’m investigating the techniques I followed to see what I can change for next time.

Happy pie baking!

 

Why baking terrifies people – and why it doesn’t have to

I absolutely did not grow up helping my mom measure flour and sugar for homemade birthday cakes. My grandpa has always been the baker in the family, and I loved spending time at the G-rents’ house watching him twist up cinnamon rolls and roll out pie dough, and to this day he’s in charge of the pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving. He peaked my interest in baking, but I want to be clear that this was not a skill or art I learned as a child. It wasn’t until my first job, at 14 years old (they overlooked the work permit law for a good six months), that I started to study the art of baking. The pastry chefs at Primrose Pastries in Castro Valley just adored me (I was far less sarcastic at 14) and let me help prep and mix, when I finished weighing and balling cookie dough, whenever the opportunity arose. By the end of my tenure there I was creating fondant mushrooms and dusting them with cinnamon, writing script on cakes, and making cookie dough all by my onesie. That’s when I learned that there’s nothing more delicious than making a sweetie yourself, from scratch. So I’m here to quell the fears you may have about baking. It’s really not that scary, I promise, and it’s worth every minute and calorie.

First, ignore what you’ve heard about baking being a science and a lot like chemistry. If you’re not interested in science, and you associate baking with science, (no surprise here) you won’t be interested in baking. And although completely true, there’s no need to understand the chemistry of baking soda versus baking powder in order to produce a tasty treat. I have no idea what the difference between the two is or why you use one and not the other or both sometimes. You merely need to be able to find a good recipe and follow it.

Take the time to do a little recipe research. If you choose a faulty recipe, you’re going to waste loads of time making a sweetie that doesn’t measure up to your expectations. Look up a bunch of recipes for the same item and figure out what they all have in common and which one stands out – avoid that one. Choose the recipe that seems to be the lowest common denominator, the one that includes all the basic ingredients and techniques, nothing fancy, nothing experimental. Bakers stand by tried and true ingredients and techniques, and will rarely deviate from their favorite cake recipe once they find it. When you’re just starting out, keep it simple. Don’t try to be a cupcake hero.

Speaking of expectations, adjust yours before you put that apron on. If it doesn’t turn out to be the most delicious apple pie you’ve ever eaten, remember that you saw a hundred other recipes out there and try another one next time. It took me 12 years baking chocolate chip cookies to find THE recipe, and I must have tried two dozen others before I found it. The smallest detail can alter a recipe vastly (which is why choosing a simple one at first is key), so try to determine what you didn’t love about your dish and Google it – “apple pie filling that isn’t mushy,” “flaky pie crust,” etc. (BTW, I recommend a combination of cooked and raw Granny Smith apples for the filling, and an all-butter pie crust.)

Once you’ve got your recipe, follow it exactly. When you’re cooking, it’s ok to sub vegetable oil for olive oil, or to omit the carrots if you forgot to buy them. You cannot skip a single step or ingredient in baking. Maybe this is daunting, or maybe it makes things easier. You don’t have to think at all, you just have to follow instructions. Unlike cooking, where you have to understand what sweating onions means in order to complete that step, baking instructions are pretty self-explanatory. Sift flour, cream butter and sugar, whisk together dry ingredients. Easy peasy. If you follow instructions exactly, your dish will turn out exactly how it’s supposed to. Remember, that might not be how you want it to turn out, but it’ll be how the recipe wants it to turn out.

I’ve compiled some basic tips that I think will help anyone who wants to learn how to bake.

- Don’t mess with oven temperatures or rack positions. If it says use the lowest oven rack at 400, don’t be too lazy to move your oven racks around.

- Rotate your baked goods 2/3 of the way through cooking time. I rotate everything I put into the oven, but it’s especially important with baked goods.

- Seek out recipes that explain what the consistency or texture should be like at certain stages. In baking, you can’t taste as you go so these are the only measures you have to determine whether you followed the recipe correctly.

- Take the time to read about making the dish first. I won’t use recipes that don’t have an introductory paragraph or two that explain why that particular recipe works or is different.

- Give yourself plenty of time. If you’re supposed to bring a pie to dinner, make it the night before and read the recipe thoroughly two days before. Baked goods take time to cool and set, and often the prep time is quite long because you have to refrigerate items for a length of time before you can incorporate them into other items. The quickest and easiest baked goods to make are cookies, and even those take a good 45 minutes from start to tummy.

- Let items cool for the amount of time noted and no less. Have you ever tried to trim a cake top or slice a pie before it’s fully cool? It’s a disaster. Getting your dish from the baking pan to the plate is just as important as the mixing and baking.

In order to bake, all you really need is the proper ingredients, the ability to follow a recipe and patience. You don’t have to be a pastry scientist or even a good cook. I actually find cooking more difficult than baking sometimes because of the freedom to add and adjust as you go. With baking, you make your batter or dough or filling, put it in the oven and forget about it until a timer goes off. If you can’t cook, that doesn’t mean you can’t bake. Most professional chefs only excel at one or the other, so don’t let the kitchen frighten you in general. Give baking a try. The worst thing that’ll happen is a mess in your kitchen and a hilarious story about that time you put salt instead of sugar in your cookies. And who doesn’t love a good kitchen mis-hap story?

Facebook Etiquette

 

I can’t stay quiet anymore. Yes, I realize that lamenting about things that irritate me on Facebook is juvenile and judgmental, but I feel it necessary to maintaining my cyber sanity. And if nothing else, perhaps this will make some of the rest of you feel a little less juvenile and judgmental in your similar thoughts on the topic. Just doing my part to create community.

1. For the love of all things holy to anyone, anywhere, please PLEASE do your best to use proper grammar and accurate spelling and capitalization.  One of the quickest ways to get me to stop reading your posts is by mixing up “their” and “there” or using “u” in place of “you”. I can only assume that you find yourself far too important to take the time to type those extra two letters, and that makes me judge you. Hard. And by the way, “2″ is a number and “to” is a preposition (most of the time). They are not interchangeable. Also, the beginning of a sentence or phrase is always capitalized. So if the beginning of your post isn’t your full name, just go ahead and capitalize that first letter all the time.

Understandably, mis-types happen. Personally, I delete my post or comment and re-post without error. You can also simply correct the error in another comment. Some may find this pretentious, but others, such as myself, cannot possibly live with a grammar error from my pen…or index finger. Some things, in my opinion, don’t require a correction. If you can understand the context, just let it slide. For example “oyur” (which I’m notoriously guilty of) or “adn” and the like – we all know what you meant. Correcting things like that just makes it seem like you think everyone reading your comment is too dumb to figure out that you meant “your” or “and”. And maybe some of us are, but there’s no need to make that apparent.

2. A mis-step that will get you blocked or even deleted is posting political opinions as if they were facts. I love how honest people get on Facebook, especially when it comes to politics, but no one is ever wrong about how they feel, and your opinion is never the only one that’s acceptable. If politics were so black and white, we wouldn’t need elections. There would be a clear answer to every problem, one obvious candidate for every position, all would be dandy. When politics are discussed in black and white, people seem to forget that there are multiple sides to every story, and never a time where one is “right” and another “wrong”. They’re opinions, people. Agree with them, disagree with them, challenge them, but above all else, respect that some exist outside of yours.

3. A clear segway from the above seems to be if you grossly disagree with someone’s post, either comment with class or don’t comment at all. Facebook fights are stupid, plain and simple. They make everyone involved look dumb, and there’s no urgency for closure the way there is when you have a disagreement with a friend in person. You’re likely to get more angry about a topic when you don’t have to look at your opponent’s face and remember that they’re a person you value. If you wouldn’t say it to them in person, don’t post it on Facebook.

4. Similarly, and this is one that I seriously need to work on, when it comes to your list of friends, if you wouldn’t say hello to them on the street, delete them. I feel bad denying friendship requests, it seems petty and snobby, but it’s also weird to think that Joe Random from elementary school, whom I haven’t seen since, knows that I’m hungover or baking banana bread or excited about a three-day-weekend. There are some people who I really can’t imagine care what I’m doing on the daily, and the idea of being one of the friends someone collects on Facebook is weird to me. I genuinely use Facebook as a way to update friends and family, especially the ones I don’t see as often as I’d like, on my happenings and to get/stay in touch with those I care to. On several occasions I’ve seen a Facebook friend at the grocery store or at a bar and haven’t said hello to them, but remembered that they were pumped about their cousin coming to visit last month or whatever. Ironically, social media has actually made me less social with those people. If I don’t feel the need to catch up, even for a minute, when I see you in person because I’ve read your Facebook posts and know all I care to know about you, it’s rude and nosy to keep you as a Facebook friend.

5. KISS – keep it simple, stupid. It’s inappropriate to tell all 378 of your friends something private. There are going to be “heavy” issues discussed on Facebook, such as controversial news stories, but these involve the public already. Don’t bring everyone in your cyberspace into your baby mama drama or your fury of anger about your shady friend. Handle that stuff in real life. Facebook is not real life.

6. When you post something on Facebook, you give any of your friends the power to have an opinion on it, so don’t get angry when they do. If you don’t want to hear what someone has to say about your post, don’t post it. No matter how trite or important the issue you post about is, expect that someone will disagree and live with it when they do. Also, don’t try to convince them that they’re wrong for disagreeing with you. You said your piece, let them say theirs, and let that be it. You do not exist in my cyberspace to educate me on why I should agree with you. I appreciate a healthy dialogue about issues, but disagreeing with you doesn’t make me less intelligent than you, so don’t comment like it does.

7. If you want to write cryptic posts about who-knows-what, keep a journal. Facebook posts are for everyone to see – if it won’t make sense to anyone but you, don’t post it. You’re wasting space in my news feed.

8. Utilize the “like” button more. I don’t understand the “lol” and “:-)” comments. Doesn’t that just mean that you like their post? So, “like” it. Reserve comments for original thoughts.

9. “Happy birthday!” is generic and lame. Find a fun way to remind the birthday guy or gal why you took the time to write on their wall. If all you have to say is “Happy birthday,” then you probably only wrote it because Facebook told you it’s their birthday. You’re not under obligation to wish all of your Facebook friends a happy birthday on their wall. Make it count for those that matter.

I’m sure this blog entry makes me seem incredibly stuck-up and ridiculous (psh, who cares about Facebook anyway?), but it’s my blog and I’ll stick my nose in the air about silly social media irritations if I want to. And I can’t be the only one – hell, I’ve had real-life conversations with several of you about these gripes. Let’s do our best to make Facebook a better place. For the children, or whatever.

I’m pretty proud of my carrot cake.

A Call for Action

This is the first year of my life that I’ve started to feel “older”. I’ve never been afraid of aging, and in fact look forward to my thirties (it’s like your twenties but with more money, right?), but I’ve noticed some tell-tale signs over the year of Erin, age 27, that prove a rather simple saying we’ve all heard at one point or another: “Some things just come with age.” For me, it’s been the usual things, like random gray hairs (I’ve got my mom to thank for that early onset), hangovers after 3 cocktails, midnight bedtimes on the weekend, disdain for college kids who can’t drive, and the overall “I’d rather just be at home than out at a bar” mentality. There have been some aging shockers as well though, the most notable of which being my opinions on political and social issues. My favorite college English teacher once wrote to me on my free-write response to Hedda Gabler, “Interesting point of view. I’d be curious to see how you, a stable feminist, develop this thought into a paper. I think you might convince us all of a Hedda we haven’t seen before.” (If you’re not familiar with this play, or with Henrik Ibsen’s works in general, I highly recommend him, especially if you need a break from the fluffy adolescent novels that have grown so popular for adults lately. And yes, I am an English-major snob. Sorry.)

My instructor’s comment struck me because I had never thought of myself as a feminist, or an anything-ist really. I was a 19-year-old college junior and still very much trying to figure out who I wanted to be, how I was going to get there, and how in the world I was going to get it all figured out in the next two years before I graduated. Being labelled terrified me, it seemed so permanent and defining, especially when it came to politics. What I’ve come to realize with age, which is the only outlying, contributing factor I can think of, is that the only people who can be defined by their political views are politicians. Each of us is so unique in what we care about, what we fight for, what we choose to compromise on, and what we refuse to budge on that it’s difficult to call anyone, with any amount of certainty, a “feminist” nowadays.

An example: studies show that corporate women who wear makeup to work, dress nicely, do their hair, etc. are taken more seriously than those who don’t. However, there is no comparable stipulation for men. Even the part about dressing nicely can’t be equated to what women deal with. The differences between a designer man’s suit and something off the rack are hard to determine for most people. Women have a much broader range of fashion faux pas to commit: short skirts, frumpy sweaters, holes in our nylons, casual dresses, grey trouser socks with black shoes, shirts that properly cover our cleavage without making us look like school marms from Little House on the Prairie, the list of things we have to consider when getting dressed in the morning is exhausting. And it’s more than a little annoying that I have to take my appearance into account more than a male counterpart in my same position does. But – I still do it. When I was promoted from my office job, where my colleagues were no stranger to my Styx t-shirt, jeans, ponytail-straigh-outta-the-shower, and no makeup look, I abandoned my comfort level for a look more appropriate for field sales. Getting up an hour earlier to do my makeup and hair has been irritating, but if I believe in those studies (which, being 2 courses shy of a psychology double-major, I do) I have to sacrifice that extra hour of sleep to feel confident that my customers will take me seriously when I knock on their door. Do I believe that we need to change the way people view corporate women? Absolutely. Do I think the most effective avenue is for me to start the revolution by wearing a Styx t-shirt into a sales call? No.

I also believe that a country whose personal wealth is concentrated in the top 1% of the population needs a major economic reform. I do not believe that pitching tents in downtown districts of major cities across the nation is going to get us any closer to such a reform. In fact, I think this tactic may just set us back. The Occupy movement has made those of us who yearn for reform look like children who don’t understand that we need to finish our dinner before we can have dessert. I’ll be honest – I’m still very unclear about what the goals of Occupy are. To me, it looks like a group of people who want their voice to be heard, who want to express their contempt for the corporations who are guzzling up all the wealth that’s available, people who want the system to change…overnight. Guys, there has to be a better way.

Have you Occupiers and Occupy-supporters tried: Moving your money to a credit union or small bank? I did. Shopping at family-owned grocery stores, farmer’s markets, using CSAs, buying food in bulk and preserving it yourself? I do. Avoiding chain restaurants in favor of mom-and-pop diners that provide better service, better prices, and better food? You’ll never catch me in a Chili’s. Our daily actions and choices are what’s going to promote the change we want, not the inaction of camping out downtown. Of course it’s going to take time, but if we’re talking about drastic reform we should remove ourselves as individuals from the equation and think of it in terms of the greater good, our children’s generation, and the years after us.

I would love to feel equipped to get my hands on some of Bank of America’s CEO’s fortune, but I’m realistic enough to know that it’s not going to happen any time soon. So I do the things that I know will hurt the big companies every day, chipping away at their profit little by little. And I’ve been doing them long before anyone pitched a tent on Wall Street. The trendiness of this movement is what irritates me the most, because people like myself will continue to practice anti-corporate behavior in our daily lives when this all blows over, but the Occupier in San Francisco with the $200 tent will probably go back to shopping at Whole Foods in Noe Valley, throwing up his hands claiming that government and politics and the police are all so unjust. But he won’t be at the next city council meeting, or rallying votes for a new mayor in Oakland, or even encouraging his friends to move their money.

I adore the tenacity of Americans, and the rigor with which we attack problems in our nation. I believe that nowhere else on Earth would a government and police force allow the amount of activism that we’re allowed here in the U.S.A. We owe it to future generations to continue the fight we’ve started, but we also owe ourselves the freedom to step back, re-evaluate, and come up with a new plan, preferably a plan that doesn’t cost cities millions of dollars in trash clean-up when the camps are shut down. Occupy isn’t working. So let’s figure out something that will.