Address to a Haggis

Recently it was Robert Burns Night, an evening to celebrate by the Scottish and Scotophil alike. Hence I made my way to my sister’s for some haggis and an opportunity to admire my brother-in-law’s kilt. With melancholy heath-inspired bag piping helping us to remember the wintry, rainy Scotland we ate and toasted and addressed the haggis.

I have liked haggis since I first tried it in Scotland somewhere between nine and seven years ago. I recall the experience, the setting, the flavor, and the company. I guess that’s about as much as you can ask of any meal, making it one that is well worth repeating in wintry, rainy Seattle followed by some poetry reading and accent slaughtering.

How a nation comes by their special celebration days is always a bit awkward, but nobody beats the Scottish! Guy Fox Night (more like month), Burns Night, Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival, are just a few I’ve experienced and found pretty ‘warm-reeking, rich!’

Regretfully we didn’t get haggis as such (US food regulations make it unavailable for purchase), but enjoyed a delicious and remarkable lamb roast accompanied by the neeps and tatties which fill out many a Scottish meal. Haggis is made of lamb bits and pieces ground up with oats and spices and stuffed into a casing and baked. It is into this near-bursting sausage that the happy host stabs a knife at a precious moment for the dinner party’s enjoyment. Neeps and tatties are parsnips and mashed potatoes, although the addition of carrots and other roots appears quite regularly.

I must say, an evening motivated by writing and a meal appeals very strongly to me. If you can get such a gathering going, I recommend Glenlivet and Bruichladdich for the after-dinner addresses whether or not you’re toasting Burns.

Indochine

Intense mid-20th century writing has surprised me again. Picking up Graham Greene’s The Quiet American from the library for my book group I was happy to see the shortness of it. Sometimes reading small books is a pleasure in itself. Not having read Graham Greene’s work before meant that I was mistaken to assume length had anything to do with weight.

How Greene was able to capture the mindset (which remains contemporary in my opinion) of Western men living in the East impresses me. The Americans, the British, the French, the Chinese, the lone Indian, and the Vietnamese interact and act upon one another. Some with understanding , some with concern, but all perform with enough ignorance and selfishness to create and sustain war.

There were many men, but only three women in this story. The wife, the mistress, and the mistress’ sister sought their vision as hard as the men, yet with nearly no interaction. Their decisions were equally crucial with those of the men in determining the outcome of our heros’ lives, likewise displaying how ownership of a conflict can pass hands and come around again.

Whether the cynic can remain uninvolved or the naïve live through his attachment may need more consideration, yet as presented here the answer is clear. The concept of marriage providing any stability at all comes into question, and the organization of an assassination by one who cringes to see a fly crushed is poignant. Once again, in love and war, everything becomes fair play.

Haiti

This last week I didn’t post any blogs. I guess discussing the pastries I’m making seems callous in the light of the devastation in Haiti. Considering that I went to work and produced pastries every day and have posted blogs when countless other suffering has gone on, I wonder if I’m just pretending that it would be callous.

Having said that, I made a really delicious plum cake…. See, it is out of touch. But I haven’t read more than anyone else about Haiti or Haitian food or Haitian relief efforts. This morning ten-year-olds were telling me about the children who’ve been hurt in Haiti.

So, instead let’s pray that God would comfort and nourish the living, and that God would give the aid workers access to food and water to dispense, that the aid organizations would work together, and that many would have a safe space to rest and recover from this dreadful week.

Coconut Genoise

At my new place of work, Mistral-Kitchen, one of our first desserts has been a Coconut Tres Leches cake (served with diced mango, mango sorbet, and a coconut tuile). A Tres Leches cake is a simple genoise (eggs, sugar, flour only) soaked in milk. Well, actually three milks: milk, cream, and sweetened condensed milk. For a coconut Tres Leches we substituted the cream with coconut milk, as well as added lime zests and some rum. It turns out very nicely.

However, after making the straight-forward genoise, I had the great idea to substitute part of the all purpose flour with some of my coconut flour. I still have some of the coconut flour from the pound I bought and experimented with last summer. This was a fantastic idea, and tasted delicious. All of a sudden the basic, flavorless genoise was worth eating in its own right (maybe a glass of milk on the side still, yet such an improvement from the original!)

Once I soaked the coconut genoise in milk I was able to detect the high fiber content which threw me off in my original experiments with the coconut flour. It gets slightly grainy. But this time, with all the good accompaniments it turned out just fine. Hurrah for coconut genoise! I may have even created a new base for all kinds of coconut desserts. Yum.

Wicked

I love twists in novels. In my personal life it’s not always so reassuring, but reading about Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, in Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, was entrancing. I’ll point out that I read The Wizard of Oz when I was a kid, as well as the rest of the series. It made perfect sense to me after the series why nobody else read more than Oz, but at least I knew.

Even though Wicked was written by a different author, for a different audience, I think I held to some of that skepticism, hence the novel has sat on my shelf for over two years before I picked it up and began to read. Oh well, others have waited longer! And even this was jump-started by watching the movie with my nieces.... Goodness, I haven’t enjoyed a novel so much in such a long while that I can’t even put my finger on the last great reading pleasure. Maybe something of the Harry Potter series, but that really is a long time ago. (Last summer I read an engrossing book by Polkinghorn, but that wasn’t fiction.)

I often tell people that I’m not that into purely invented worlds in literature. I now know that in fact, I am incredibly impressed with fictional realms that are well done. I still don’t see myself becoming a science-fiction fan, but no longer think it’s absurd. Why shouldn’t one consider what it would be to show up in Oz as a green baby? And do great riches make one good in Oz? Or, where is the line between animals and Animals? Do politics entirely shape a person’s life in Oz and can one explain who one is without giving that and one’s religious upbringing a thorough examination?

Well, Elphaba is certainly a bright individual, grasshopper greenness aside. I have enjoyed meeting her and learning of her as much as most heroines I’ve met through the years. The fact that little Dorothy is not so unlike Elphaba is even more reason to consider how worlds collide. However we meet, may we extend abundant grace and forgiveness!