Hungry Patience

Thanks to Veritas Photography for this sweet film photo!

 Hi everyone,

       As I near the end of my gigantic projects, I am starting to see what might be on the other side. As Eric and I near our "move to California" date (the countdown on our kitchen whiteboard says 51 days at present, and that number just keeps going down...and down...and down), I am starting to feel the expanse of space that lies for me in Berkeley. I hope to take everything I've been doing over my last 6 years here in PDX (I'm a senior in Portland! You know, Jr. High - 3 years and High School - 3 years) and get to slow down with it all in Berkeley. I want to pick what I do rather than finding myself doing so so many different things all at once. I've been an actress, theatre teacher, certified yoga teacher, singer-songwriter, performance artist, freelance writer, food blogger, kids' music performer, graduate student and more all in this time.
        With my MFA-IA graduate degree from Goddard College winding up (I'm just waiting for any final notes), and my one-woman show finding its latest incarnation with performances at Hipbone Studio in Portland, all I really want to do is bake. I am completely absorbed by the alchemy of mixing ingredients and baking them into something new. Just like yesterday when I creamed brown sugar and butter together by hand, with a fork. (I broke my hand mixer and I've never had a stand mixer - only in my dreams.) The butter sucked up all the brown sugar and white sugar, transforming it into tawny, cookie-base glory. From there I suspended eggs, dark chocolate chips and a salty, spelt flour/whole wheat pastry flour mix into that dreamy bowl.
       My show "How to Survive a Poison Apple" is about body image and gender issues and inequalities. It's about what it means to be full. It's about reclamation of fairy-tale imagery. It's based on my own experiences and stories from when I was half-way anorexic in college and shortly thereafter. And doing this show really makes me hungry. (!) I always leave rehearsals feeling like eating. Sometimes I don't even want to do the show, I just want to go make something. Well, I will! I will do both, the show and the baking too.
      I'm making cookies for opening night (hopefully there will be plenty for the second night, too). These cookies are really salty and aged. I've included this recipe in my portfolio for grad school and Eric laughed at me when I had forgotten to include "hours" next to "Refrigerate the cookie dough for 24 - 36." He wrote in his edits "hours? not days I hope...?" Indeed, it's not days. It is hours. The time delay on these cookies is a good teacher. I can imagine the bowl sitting on the middle shelf in its dark cold home, the flavor percolating throughout and going higher up the majestic-taste mountain with every passing second. Even now as I type this, that cookie-dough gold has chilled in the fridge for almost 24 hours, but it'll be in there for a few days yet.

      Finding what I'll do next in Berkeley will take time too. It might take 24 days or even 36 or longer. It might take years. I might fail at all the things I try to do next, but at least I know that I won't be hungry. 




I'll bake up the cookies on Friday before the show. I hope you can come to share some with me! Otherwise, come on Saturday where there will be more cookies. Or otherwise make these cookies yourself. Practice patience while they age and age. You'll have Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt eventually.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

Adapted from The New York Times and Molly Wizenberg of Orangette

2 cups minus 2 Tbsp. light spelt flour
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. coarse salt, such as kosher
2 ½ sticks (1 ¼ cups) unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks, preferably about 60% cacao content
Sea salt

Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Whisk well; then set aside.

Cream the butter and sugars until they are very light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add vanilla, mixing it in. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Add the chocolate chips, and mix them all in, so they are equally distributed in the dough.  Cover and chill for 24 to 36 hours, up to six days.

When you’re ready to bake, take the cookie dough out of the fridge for 1-2 hrs. to allow it to soften. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Using a tbsp. (or for a bigger cookie - a 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup measure) and scoop 6 - 10 mounds of dough Sprinkle lightly with sea salt, and bake until golden brown but still soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Allow to cool on stove-top for 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies onto a wire rack (or a cut-up and splayed across the counter brown paper bag to cool more. Repeat with remaining dough.
 

I hope to see you at the show this weekend or somewhere else soon. Be well!

Love from Mindy
Buy tickets for How to Survive a Poison Apple

Fears

As I've sat down to begin this blog, I notice that I've been attacked from the start by a number of fears.  The kind of fears that often keep me from writing: What will people think of me?  Do I really have anything to say?  Will it be really boring?  Haven't my friends heard enough from me by now?

In addition, trying to write about our upcoming move, a lot of other fears come up:  Will friends think we're abandoning them?  What if we don't like living in the Bay Area?  What if we don't get enough work around my schooling, and we can't afford it?  Will my friends who don't have similar spiritual views feel betrayed?  What if the stress of all this tears us apart?  And many, many more.

My best answer to all of these is:  I'm trying to listen to my gut.  Even through the fears, it seems to say that this is the right thing to do.  Enough inner and outer clues have converged that I feel strongly about attending seminary, attending PSR specifically, and making this move.  Enough people have offered confirmation that they think this is a good path for me, too - a valuable thing, as we humans are generally pretty good at deluding ourselves.  Or at least, I know I am!

As for the blog:  It was my idea, and I feel strongly about making my life more of an "open book" than it's sometimes been (like when all those fears carry me away).  There's only one way from here to there, which is to learn as I go.  So, here is an attempt to face down my fears and do that.