It's a rather simple fact of life: I wear ridiculous shoes. There is a general attempt to wear appropriate shoes, especially if there's a plan to be walking, but I really do wear ridiculous shoes. To the grocery store: shiny, strappy heels. To the used book store: black, platform, spiky-heeled booties. Casual drinks: clompy suede oxfords with studded toes and bronze snakeskin accents. Ridiculous shoes, usually sometimes with the most relaxed and casual outfits. Every day is a day to dress up, especially when one's work uniform during the summer is anything + a t-shirt we sell in the store...and moccasins.
Don't get me wrong, I adore my moccasins. We sell great ones and they often top an outfit brilliantly, but it's just not the same when fall rolls around and I can wear clothes that aren't T-shirts to work. So, I overcompensate, having lost three months to shirts with bears (holding signs that say "will work for honey") and deer and raccoons on them. Still, standing on those aforementioned black booties to bake shortbread for Book Club is a chancy proposition at best. One doesn't want to attend a gathering of women friends already feeling as though her feet are going to wither off and die.
So, I have a shoe dilemma today. Go with my head, my heart, or a combination of both? A woman, or at least this woman, often dresses more for herself and other women than she does men. Especially when the only men she interacts with on a regular basis are either customers, family, or the committed significant others of those women friends. It simply doesn't do to (unwittingly or not) attract too much male attention when that attention isn't yours to attract in the first place.
And so, we bake. My shortbread recipe (chose for the Book Club girls today because a. it's yummy, b. easily transportable, c. easy to leave some for the grumbling masses at home, and d. they do mention people living in Scotland in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) is adapted from The Frugal Gourmet On Our Immigrant Ancestors. A Twitter friend of mine recently expressed something that nags at my conscience when discussing this book. Of course, I can't find his actual tweet, but he said something to the effect that food always tastes better when you know where it came from and why it evolved this way. That the history of a food gives us a better understanding of the history of people. It is absolutely true, the Jeff Smith does one of the best jobs I can imagine at giving the reader the backstory of each recipe.
Shortbread (ingredients from The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors, technique my own)
2 cups flour
1 heaping tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 pound (or 2 sticks) butter, cold from the refrigerator
1/2 cup sliced almonds
Mix the dry ingredients (not including the almonds) together in a bowl. Dice the still firm butter into small chunks, then add to the dry ingredients. With your fingers and thumbs, push the butter into the flour, etc, adding the almonds when about half mixed. Keep mixing, allowing the heat from your hands and occasionally a fork bring the mixture together. It will form something of a crumbly pie dough.
Roll it out on a floured marble board (or your countertop) to about 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick, then cut into biscuit circles. Cut those in half again. You could also use a pastry scraper to cut the dough into squares or rectangles about 1.5 inches in length.
Place on a heavy duty cookie sheet, then bake in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for around 10-15 minutes. There will be a nutty, buttery aroma in your home, and the shortbread will be a medium golden brown on the bottom. The top of these cookies do not turn particularly golden, so do not use their color as a measure of doneness.
It's a rainy, cloudy, foggy day. Not one at all I had in mind when I was thinking about how I feel today...but that hasn't deterred me from breaking out the fake Ray Bans. Having "Book Club" always makes me think of ladies who lunch, ladies who have nothing to do. Well, I still don't have those discussion points, and I still have to re-skim the book. This weekend is a Formula1 weekend. There's a race in Singapore, and a World Superbike race in Italy. I cover both. At obscene hours of the day, so there's no time for fancy shoe pictures or time to work out a new recipe...at least one ready for publication. So, have a loverly weekend, all, and see you when Monday rolls around!
"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor
Don't get me wrong, I adore my moccasins. We sell great ones and they often top an outfit brilliantly, but it's just not the same when fall rolls around and I can wear clothes that aren't T-shirts to work. So, I overcompensate, having lost three months to shirts with bears (holding signs that say "will work for honey") and deer and raccoons on them. Still, standing on those aforementioned black booties to bake shortbread for Book Club is a chancy proposition at best. One doesn't want to attend a gathering of women friends already feeling as though her feet are going to wither off and die.
And so, we bake. My shortbread recipe (chose for the Book Club girls today because a. it's yummy, b. easily transportable, c. easy to leave some for the grumbling masses at home, and d. they do mention people living in Scotland in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) is adapted from The Frugal Gourmet On Our Immigrant Ancestors. A Twitter friend of mine recently expressed something that nags at my conscience when discussing this book. Of course, I can't find his actual tweet, but he said something to the effect that food always tastes better when you know where it came from and why it evolved this way. That the history of a food gives us a better understanding of the history of people. It is absolutely true, the Jeff Smith does one of the best jobs I can imagine at giving the reader the backstory of each recipe.
2 cups flour
1 heaping tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 pound (or 2 sticks) butter, cold from the refrigerator
1/2 cup sliced almonds
Mix the dry ingredients (not including the almonds) together in a bowl. Dice the still firm butter into small chunks, then add to the dry ingredients. With your fingers and thumbs, push the butter into the flour, etc, adding the almonds when about half mixed. Keep mixing, allowing the heat from your hands and occasionally a fork bring the mixture together. It will form something of a crumbly pie dough.
Roll it out on a floured marble board (or your countertop) to about 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick, then cut into biscuit circles. Cut those in half again. You could also use a pastry scraper to cut the dough into squares or rectangles about 1.5 inches in length.
Place on a heavy duty cookie sheet, then bake in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for around 10-15 minutes. There will be a nutty, buttery aroma in your home, and the shortbread will be a medium golden brown on the bottom. The top of these cookies do not turn particularly golden, so do not use their color as a measure of doneness.
It's a rainy, cloudy, foggy day. Not one at all I had in mind when I was thinking about how I feel today...but that hasn't deterred me from breaking out the fake Ray Bans. Having "Book Club" always makes me think of ladies who lunch, ladies who have nothing to do. Well, I still don't have those discussion points, and I still have to re-skim the book. This weekend is a Formula1 weekend. There's a race in Singapore, and a World Superbike race in Italy. I cover both. At obscene hours of the day, so there's no time for fancy shoe pictures or time to work out a new recipe...at least one ready for publication. So, have a loverly weekend, all, and see you when Monday rolls around!
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