Camp camp camp

is taking over my life. The most inspiring thing I've had as of late is a combination Maltesers and Coke zero, which my friend Coca put me on. It gives a nice buzz for about two hours, but is unfortunately habit forming.

Coke and Maltesers

1 bag of Maltesers or Whoppers

1 can of Coke Zero, or Coke if you prefer

Alternating sips and bites, finish both very quickly. Ignore tummy ache and appreciate flood of adrenaline that carries you from lunch time to 4 o'clock pick up time.

Shelf life potential rarely reached

I should be sitting at my computer writing on here all day, but what happens is I get hungry and things go downhill from there. Tonight I spoiled my dinner with about 8 handfuls of

Kirkland trail mix: a jumble of M&M's, raisins, and salted peanuts. You start out with a fairly well-balanced mix, but by the latter half of your handfuls, you've sifted out the raisins and peanuts and are eating straight M&M's. Girlfriend, I thought to myself, You Need This Energy. You Do. Keep Eating That Chocolate. Uh, Trail Mix. The Trail Mix.

In spite of being fairly stuffed from my energy cocktail (M&M's), I still ate dinner. And now I'm making brownies. My dad wanted some, and I am a good daughter. And I love ice cream on warm brownies, and with strawberries, and also scooped straight from the carton. For years we've made brownies from a packaged brown powder bought in bulk from Costco. But then I decided I was much too fancy for that, and set about trying to make brownies on my own. Multiple failures were had. Apparently you must be a chemist to make brownies properly. Usually, I ended up with hot, chalky, slightly browned flour. I went back to that boxed mix four times in tears, and it always took me back. What a toxic relationship we had.

But fluffy, lame, from-the-box-brownie no more. Mark Bittman, my main man, has giveth me a fudgey, cakey (but NEVER puffy or stiff), adaptable brownie, which really suits my whimsy for added ingredients.

The First From-Scratch Brownie Recipe I've Ever Had Success With

Adapted From Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

2 ounces of semi-sweet bakers chocolate, chopped

8 Tbsp of butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

A pinch of salt

Preheat the oven the 350ºF.

Combine the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat. Stirring constantly, whisk the butter and chocolate together until the chocolate is almost melted. Remove from heat, whisk until chocolate is completely melted.

Pour the chocolate mixture into a bowl. Add the sugar and stir to combine. Add the eggs one at a time and mix in well. Gently fold in the flour, salt, and vanilla. Scrape the batter into a greased pan. Bake for twenty or twenty-five minutes. Brownies should be a little underdone in the center just after baking.

I on;y made these yesterday, but they're already gone. Next time I'll have to make them in secret so I can snap some pictures.

Instead, here's my friend KChan in the fridge.

Some days

Few things depress me more than failed baking.

I'm not proud to say it, but today I cried over a miserable, soggy pie crust. Having never made pie crust before + having a fairly lax attitude towards a thing so peasant, so common as measuring ingredients = my vision of a glorious, golden pie crust sliding quickly into a puddle at the bottom of the dish. It was worse than failure: the sodden pile at the bottom looked akin to a pile of snot. It was a bake-ular meltdown followed by an emotional one.

But then there are things like mothers and Tenderflake frozen crusts in the freezer. There are things like thick slices of bread studded with olives, rosemary winking between your teeth. But most soothingly, most hearteningly, there are things like meringue.

I must admit: even though I had the frozen crust, the Key-Lime pie I was going for was sadly–even strangely–un-limey. Mark Bittman, you used to be my second-dream-man. You wore those striped t-shirts with a blazer with such awkward panache I could've kissed the shiny spot on your waxy bald head. But this Key-Lime pie was underwhelming. Not disappointing: its texture was lush, and its color was a pleasing, happy celery. It just...it just lacked any spirit. Any get-go. Any ZIP. But then, today so did I.

The meringue, on the other hand, was like a back rub. The zippy whirrr of the electric mixer, the powdered sugar making me sneeze (into my arm, relax). And oh! Honey! Those browned peaks like little kitten ears, like Willy-Wonka landscapes!  My kitchen confidence was bolstered, but it's going to take another batch of Macadamia-Ginger Cookies to restore it completely.

Bad sign

It's a guilt-inducing business, thinking of your parents before you were their kid. If their old photos are any indication, you've made them much more boring. They had the same reckless go-about in their pictures that I hope to achieve, though caution and a healthy dose my Worry-Wart from my mother keep me otherwise contained. They even look a little drunk in this album of a barn dance; is that a cigarette in her hand at that 1940s gangster party? 

My Dad, for instance, used to have colored hair, and a great tan. He looked like an old-timey movie star with his big smile and hair so slick it put his dress shoes to shame. A dashing Davy Crockett in the photo where he and his own father hold us a moose in the middle of the wilderness: a grin and one hooded, mirth-misted eye just visible under the brim of his bucket hat. A modern and suave charmer. My Mom always said that Dad was a babe, albeit strangely dressed. 

It is reassuring that my Dad's penchant for pleated shorts and patched sweaters wasn't carried on in honor of my brother and my childhood. Rather, he has clung to his salmon pink shorts since the tender age of twenty-three or so. Having found a look he considered comfortable and dashing (in 1970), he suctioned to it, and as far as my sisters or I can tell, he vowed never to let go. Not even in the face of three daughters, a stylish son, and two different wives, pleading gently (or bluntly, in the case of a social event) with him, Please Dad/Dan, That Coat Looks Like A Rug. I accept no blame for his dressing ability: I really did the best I could with the material I was given. I accept full responsibility for his sweet tooth though. Or full reprehensibility, should I say.

"Katie, do you know what day it is?"

My Dad's voice booms from the direction of the kitchen island, and I wince. Six thirty this morning is an awful, sweaty time. Having grown accustomed to my house in Victoria, which we never heated (central heating costs a lotta $$$, so we harvested warmth from the stove while our banana loaves were baking), this home is unbearably hot. The things you can buy with a disposable income! So I was tottering down the stairs, hair stuck unattractively to my neck with sweat, my eyes practically crusted shut with salt, and not thinking clearly.

"Uh..." I blinked a grain of pus away. "Friday?"

"Friday Key Lime Pie Day." He responded, pursing his lips. He was throwing in one of his Pie on Demand coupons I had given him for a birthday. I see how it is.

Unfortunately, what neither of us saw was that it was not Key Lime Pie Day. It was Macadamia-Ginger Cookie Day. I wasn't feeling the pie, which is strange. Strange like a swarm of locusts. I love pie. There is nothing in the world better than pie. I don't eat birthday cake. I eat birthday PIE with a pint of ice cream (lactose intolerance be damned). SO you can see that I was alarmed, and felt that my kitchen feng shui needed some alignment before I was going to venture into my reason for living.

Macadamia-Ginger Cookies

Apparently, I was vibing in the kitchen, as I had a vision of a cookie that I wanted, and I achieved it first try. Something cakey: fluffy, even. With zip and a crunch. These cookies were heavenly. Yielding and sweet without being puffy. They eld their own. If Cyndi Lauper was a cookie, these would be her in her lipsticked, prom-dressed glory. A little frilly, but also completely, unforgivably sassy.

Adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

2 cups of all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

8 tablespoons of chilled butter

3/4 cup of brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1/4 cup of milk, plus more if needed

3/4 cup of chopped macadamia nuts, plus more if the batter can cope

3/4 cup candied ginger, chopped

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp all-spice.

Preheat your oven to 375º.

I combined the ingredients in the food processor, mimicking the method for making scones. You can do this recipe the old separate the wet/dry way, but I like the food processor because it reduces the risk of overmixing this delicate batter, which would make it tough.

So: place all the dry ingredients in the food processor, pulse once or twice to mix. Cut the chilled butter into pieces and add to the processor: pulse until the butter and sugar are well blended.

Add the vanilla, milk, and the egg. Pulse to blend. If the batter is tough or dry, add bits of milk by the spoonful.

Drop little balls-o-batter onto a greased cookie sheet, and bake until the edges are lightly browned, about 10-12 minutes.

Let em' love you up.

The way I want my life to look

• White dishes. Mismatched textures and edges, but all white. Wish dishes.
• Antique silverware.
• Hardwood floors.
• Natural light.
• A polaroid camera present.
• Veggie gardens without slugs (slugs have their place though. They could be considered cute).
• Cake stands, plural. A big blue one, a smallish orange one; more.
• Baking dishes: lots. Silpat lining with MADE IN FRANCE embossed.
• Pitchers full or flowers or lemonade or homemade iced tea.
• Tea from teapots.
• Handmade hot chocolate mix.
• Blankets and pillows.
• An always full cookie jar.
• Bowls bowls bowls: pretty metal ones and matte free form white ones and maybe a few cream ones and at least one sassy hued one.
• Lots of wine.
• More beer.
• Burritos, salsa, chips.
• Cookbooks.
• Bookshelves with rotating fare: lots of trips to second hand bookstores.
• Farmer's markets.
• Fresh bread.
• Homemade mayonnaise.

POINT, SELF

HA.

Army and Navy, I will trust you forever. LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN YOU:

I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW.

YES.

Those are PEUGOT SALT AND PEPPER GRINDERS. FOR. TEN. DOLLARS.

Usually found costing sixty dollars, and at much more refined (no offense, A&N, but lets be real) shi-shi kitchen stores in downtown storefronts or cutesy heritage villages. I know they look a little like chess pawns (and even have the misfortune of being photographed on a chess board: my bad), but that's somewhat symbolic. They symbolize my TRIUMPH in the game called "I Want Pepper But It a) Won't Come Out or b) Makes an Awful Noise". One of our roommates, Marin, literally had to leave the room when we were fighting with the pepper, because of the banshee wail it emitted. Two words for you, ugly clear plastic apparatus: HA. HAAA.

Also: Baby shower that rejected my cake, you gave me a lunch of 3 different dips and veggie tray drop outs. You're still only okay.

Mangia, but don't substitute the walnut oil

All I want to do with my life is buy beautiful dishes.

On Sunday night, my parents and I went to my sister Tanis' house-beautiful for dinner. Something to know about Tanis: you will love her. It's intrinsically wrong and against human nature to be anything but completely enamored, and you're a monster or a sociopath should you decide to go against the grain in that situation. I know that if I were reading this, I would simply decide right then and there that I hated this person and that was that, in some misguided attempt to stand out. You can't. Don't waste your time. Her hubby? Dashing, and can pull off Mandals (man-sandals). Her children? Cherubs with a penchant for yelling and dancing and kashi, in one case. Her kitchen? I puke in my mouth with extreme jealousy every time I visit.

Tan has been working with Quattro, an Italian restaurant native to Vancouver, since she spearheaded her PR company T2 Communications. Her dinner was inspired by the cookbook that she has been working on with the restaurant, due out in the fall of 2009.

Tanny, should you read this, know that your dinner was beautiful, nubile, and worthy of plate licking, from which I only refrained because I am twenty now, not two. Plus I'd have dripped on my dress and looked apprehensible and droll minus the irony. Had I been alone or with Chris (very few niceties left between us) I would've washed the plate with my tongue. I refrained at your home and only used my finger, and even then I felt unrefined, although blessedly full.

But, darling sister, what really stole me away (over and above the riesling you poured me two delicious, warming glasses of) was your dish ware. Not that I think you have a cupboard full of two-dollar salad bowls, but I was hunting around Army and Navy yesterday and I stumbled across the most impressive, beautiful collection of white porcelain! For six bucks, my Mom bought an enormous dish that looks like it could have come from... don't now, fancy dish places. Like Ikea! Or at least Bombay. SIX. DOLLARS. I had to exercise a lot of self control to resist buying myself a whole new shiny set of dishes. And then I remembered that I'm broke, so I didn't even need self-control anymore.

Something that's taking some getting used to is carrying my camera around.

This salad was a great balance to the rest of the meal, which was comprised of a italian-style jambalaya of octopus, squid, and shrimp, and an orange and mustard glazed salmon. The licorice-y flavor of the fennel is present, but doesn't call attention to itself unlike its annoying seed, anise. The citrus of the orange and lemon juice brought a little lightness to the afore mentioned jambalaya. Super delicious, super easy, even healthy.

Tanis' Salad of Fennel and Orange

Adapted from the not-yet-but-soon-to-be-published Mangia with Quattro: Family-Style Italian from the Heart.

2 fennel bulbs, sliced thin with a knife or mandoline.

1-3 oranges, quartered and sliced into bite-sized pieces. The range is just to taste. When i served myself I admittedly tried to scoop up more than my fair share of orange bits.

Toasted pine nuts, optional and if used, the amount is to your liking.

Toss all the ingredients together. Cover and chill until ready to serve. Dressing is simply

 some squeezed lemon juice and a few drizzles of olive oil, salt and pepper.

I brought dessert, so my bad behavior of the day previous became a crime of opportunity. My Mom was having a baby shower and explicitly told me not to make anything, as it was going to be pot-luck style, and should I make stuff she'd have too much food.

"Mom...I did something bad."

My Mom, sounding worried at work. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I baked a walnut cake Mom. I'm sorry. I need to join Baker's Anonymous, for real this time."

It didn't get eaten at the shower, as there was a lot fo pot-luck veggie trays and an industrial Costco Carrot Cake, but Tanis is a much more deserving recipient than somebody's baby.

Warning to do with this recipe: I'm a bit stupid, and assume I can replace anything with anything and have a cake turn out ducky doo. And the cake was good- florally, foamy wine smells wafting around during the baking time, and the toasted walnuts sweet but never cloying- but the crumb was a teeny bit dry and tough, if I do say. I think the two biggest reasons for this was 1) My using one cup of whole wheat flour instead of just being a all-purpose/cake flour purist, and 2) Because I didn't have any walnut oil, I instead melted some butter and mixed it with some applesauce and just called it "instead of". And well...I might have over mixed it a bit.  It did taste good though. Yum yum yum yum.

Follow the recipe for best results. I know right? Strange advice.

French-Style Walnut Cake

Inspired by Orangette, Adapted from Saveur Cooks Authentic French

1/2 cup broken walnut

3 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1/3 cup walnut oil

1/3 cup white wine

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

Tiny pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Toast the walnut chunks in a dry saucepan over medium-low heat. Shake them around a bit, as I burnt my first batch. I'm sounding like quite a clod in this recipe.

Beat the eggs in a medium bowl with an electric mixer. Add the sugar and mix well, until liquid is lemon colored and fluffy. Add the walnut oil and wine and mix.

Generously grease a 9 inch cake pan, and if you have bad luck getting cakes out of pans as I do, cut a round of parchment out for the bottom and grease that too.

Mix the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add the egg mixture and mix till just combined. Add toasted walnuts and fold in carefully. Learn from my mistakes: try not to over-mix.

Bake about 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool about 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Chocolate Sauce/Ganache/Brown Top Part

I made this up, and it's completely wrong, but it tasted real good.

A handful of chocolate chips (mine were left over from school, and I wanted to get rid of them)

1 Tbsp butter

1 2oz block of bittersweet chocolate

1 tsp orange zest

About 1/4 cup of milk or cream, to move along the sauce-y process.

Set up a double boiler on your stove, or a sauce pan with a 1/2 inch of water and a bowl sitting on top of it.

Bring the water to a simmer.

Without grace or practice, dump all your ingredients except the milk into the bowl. Let it get soft, and then begin mixing it around with a fork, adding bits of milk/cream as you need to to moisten.

This bit is "university-chic/cheap".