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the living finish

Friday, February 17, 2012 by alana

There’s some chaos in the kitchen this week.
We finally exchanged the plywood counters for recycled chalk board and butcher block, and my friends Adam and Justin have been in here cutting and polishing and gluing. It’s really so beautiful, and I’ll share pictures soon… we’ll have a little kitchen tour.
Also, chaos in my head as I walk in to the kitchen. It’s been a year now since my whole family came into this kitchen together, and we are still figuring out how to peacefully feed all seven of us through the day. Sometimes we are one family, but often, we are two families who live differently. We put things in different places. We eat different foods. There is a long list of ingredients that at least one but more likely two or three people don’t like, and it includes chicken, lamb, fish, cilantro, rosemary, curry, thyme, tofu, soup, rice, shrimp, garlic, hot peppers, ginger, and cheese. I dream of Julia Child’s outlines of cooking tools on the kitchen walls. I do not write because I am organizing, again. I think we need to embark on some pretty serious meal planning. Of course, being the matriarch in the kitchen that I am, I think a lot of things.
I’m trying to let go a bit. I’m working on it.
We certainly have figured a few systems out this year. We have dish schedules and personalized water glasses and napkin rings. We all have different nights that we cook. We have an entire rack in the kitchen dedicated to lunch boxes. Sadie sets the table. My sister clears the table. The floors get swept. The compost gets taken out. My sister, Maia (nearly fourteen now), and Sadie bake together in moments that make me feel buzzed through and through with contentment and pride. Most of the time, there is dinner. Most of the time, we sit at the table after our plates are scraped clean, and we laugh about something or other.
In the the next few weeks, Tuesday nights will start to belong to Sadie. She’s been cooking and baking more over the last few months. She comes into the kitchen, rattled by her sister or my sister, or really anything, and she says, “If I don’t bake something, I won’t calm down!” She pulls out her current favorite cookbook (a recent Martha Stewart specimen), and she starts covering the counter with jars. This often happens when I’m deep in semi-panicked dinner prep myself, and then she and I butt heads. She needs help, or she simply can’t resist using every inch of the kitchen to make her cake. So she is inheriting Tuesday nights. I’ll stay nearby so she doesn’t burn the house down or lose a finger, but this way she can plan and shop ahead of time and have her own night to be the matriarch in the kitchen. I know what it feels like to need that.
Rosie, on the other hand, has had less interest in the kitchen and all that is has to offer. She’s going through one of her times when she wants what she wants and it better be made of bread, and so I bite my tongue and remind myself that she’ll find her way to some other chosen menu. I trust. I trust. She doesn’t seem to be disappearing, and it might just be the world itself that is fueling her. I don’t know what else it could be.
There days when I cook, and the kitchen is quiet except for the radio. I’ve had the good sense to break into a bottle of wine, and the sun streams through the windows. The mise en place is laid out on the counter. A cat sleeps on couch, and the whole house smells like that universal goodness that happens with onions and garlic hit warm butter and olive oil. But more often, I am rushing. I am cursing my poor and inefficient chopping skills. One child is crying because she has just learned that dinner does not consist of bread. The other yells, somebody shuffles by with their hands over their ears. No mise en place. No cleaning up as I go. There is piano playing, and cello, and cats meowing. I have a meeting. My mother isn’t home from work yet. Rosie takes a bag of tortilla chips out of the pantry, gets herself a bowl, claims that this is her dinner. We eat in stages, me shoving a piece of roasted cauliflower in my mouth as I run out the door. That is dinner time with another face.
This kitchen really is the heart of this house, right smack in the center. We might all be running around the center island to find the best way to feed and be fed, but this is where we meet together and take responsibility for who we are and how we express our love for each other. It’s almost as if the room itself is alive.
When my friend Adam was working on the counter tops, he kept rubbing oil into the wood and the slate. He said it was a “living finish,” and that it would grow and change and get more beautiful as it was used. We just have to pay attention, to season and rub oil into the surfaces and to understand that they need care.
I think the kitchen itself might be a living finish. Not slate or wood or cast iron, but a whole space that requires our attention, care, and love. I don’t know what that perfect oil is that will season it and make it shine. Like Tung oil on butcher block and slate. Or lard on cast iron that cooks in at a low heat, making the skillet shine with such confidence that it laughs at any pan that feels so insecure that it must actually label itself “nonstick”.
I think it might just be the act of eating that seasons a kitchen. Cooking, spilling of wine, laughing, breaking of dishes, feeding with grace, accepting with gratitude, washing of dishes as if they were your own baby. Quiet snacks on the late night counter with only a tiny light on to see. Children learning how to caramelize onions, how to whisk an egg. Crying and hollering over the island, accepting that it’s hard. That sometimes we make the hard choice because we think that it’s worth it. We work. We work again, and harder, and we promise to pay attention. And pancakes. Pancakes in the morning when there’s time, but even when there isn’t quite. Because we don’t just have to eat, we love to eat, and the kitchen can send us off into the day with that love in our bellies.
Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
adapted from Ed Levine, Serious Eats (yes, that book)
makes 16 to 18 pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
zest from one lemon
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
oil or bacon fat for the griddle
maple syrup, for serving
1. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, and lemon zest in a medium bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, ricotta, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir with a few quick strokes so that no flour is visible.
3. Heat the oil or baking fat in a cast iron skillet or griddle over medium heat until it shimmers, spreading it over the entire bottom of the pan. Use a 1/4 cup measure to scoop the batter into the pan. You can cook four to five pancakes in a 12-inch skillet, or more if your pan is larger. Cook until bubbles appear and the bottom of each pancake (when you tip it up to peek) is golden brown, two to three minutes. Flip each pancake and cook for about two more minutes. Serve with maple syrup.
 


 
 

Filed Under: breakfast, Cheese, cookbooks, Family, Kids in the Kitchen Tagged With: Favorites, tense moments, The Kitchen

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I’m Alana, and I write about food, family and the wonderful chaos that ensues when the two combine. If you’re new to the site, here are a few good places to start, or learn more about me on my about page.

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The Homemade Pantry, The Homemade Kitchen, Eating From The Ground Up 🍳

Instagram post 2337331591407595410_13442450 Sending off my taxes today with intention and prayer that they will be used to support programs for the most vulnerable, and that my little contribution will join with others to help move us towards the country I know we can be. #taxmagic ✨
Instagram post 2335726864949371764_13442450 Goodies en route to @north_plain_farm today for pickup! Word about town is that LOTS of moolah was raised for BRIDGE in this little #bakersagainstracism bake sale. Thanks to North Plain Farm and @raisinporpoise for the organizing, to everyone who bought and bid, and most of all to BRIDGE for the essential work they do. (Want to learn more about BRIDGE? Head to the link in my profile.)
Instagram post 2332756427273440195_13442450 So technically you’re not supposed to send food when trying to find an agent, but I did it it. 10 years ago, my granola helped seal that deal, and he insisted I send it to publishers when we were selling The Homemade Pantry (another general publishing no no) That Landed-a woman-with-no-platform-a-book deal Granola is up for grabs in this amazing bake sale, as well as goodies by some of my very favorite bakers (@madeinghent , @raisinporpoise , and @thedooryard to name a few). Oh and maybe my favorite item in there are the magical @susanspungen ginger chocolate cookies I mentioned a few weeks back, made by Sadie herself. All of this is to support the work of @multiculturalbridge , and the order form is up in my bio. Get to it! #bakersagainstracism
Instagram post 2330317921708403058_13442450 My friend @afgoldfarb has been part of a team of people working on this vital project. The link to learn more and help out is in my profile.
Instagram post 2330131706816229761_13442450 I’ll be baking up a storm for this! Local bakers- there’s still room for more! Let @north_plain_farm know that you want IN.
Instagram post 2324845496300301430_13442450 To those who ask here? In Great Barrington? YES. In Great Barrington.
Instagram post 2324091364266290851_13442450 I know there are so many resources out there right now, but I want to share one that’s been really helpful for me in the last several months. There are many seasons of this podcast, but I recommend Season 2 on Whiteness as well is Season 4 on Democracy. #sceneonradio
Instagram post 2322615811734696638_13442450 Black lives matter.
Instagram post 2319329508599466327_13442450 I did not bake these cookies, as I am no longer the cookie baker in this house. But this is the second time that  Sadie has made @susanspungen ‘s Triple-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies (and also the second time I’ve talked about a recipe Sadie has made from the #openkitchencookbook), and I think these might actually be the best cookies I have ever had. I’m often looking for the perfect ginger cookie and this is it, and I’d also choose it over a chocolate chip cookie (or let’s be honest-any other kind of cookie) any day.
Instagram post 2316311882260313364_13442450 No matter how many rulers and pizza cutters and other magical tools I use, it seems that the straight line will always elude me.
Instagram post 2314127252740427104_13442450 Living it up. 💥
Instagram post 2312088043104000827_13442450 Every day my neighbor’s yard gets prettier.
Instagram post 2311325683330503572_13442450 @paulaperlis sent us @susanspungen ‘s new book and of course the first recipe Sadie picked is marked with the *project* heading. She’s been cooking all afternoon and the house smells like ✨✨✨ (With gorgeous images by @gentlandhyers ❤️)
Instagram post 2311141543964321092_13442450 When I took on a day job a few years ago, I found that the first thing to go was all the homemade stuff I’d been making and writing about over the years. I’m still going out to work most days, but I’m finding now with a full and captive house and more downtime in general that those things I love to make are back. For me, it’s granola, yogurt, bread. Hello, old friends!
Instagram post 2308503311808232748_13442450 All the things in the house pasta: roasted cauliflower, a few sad leaves of kale, one jar of fancy tuna saved for a special occasion (how about Wednesday?), Rosemary, homemade breadcrumbs from the freezer fried in butter, crispy sage leaves, pasta water, salt, so much pepper. Success!
Instagram post 2307412630968777107_13442450 @artbywoodgy made this beautiful thing for me for Mother’s Day. All the veggies are on Velcro so I can plan to my hearts delight.
Instagram post 2306345003953662730_13442450 Happy Mother’s Day to my brave and beautiful mom, who birthed two different humans in such different times in her life. With me she was so young, and she figured it all out just as she was learning how to be an adult. This picture was taken nineteen years later, when she was pregnant again and I was almost an adult myself. Thanks for keeping at it, Mom, and for always showing up with love. ❤️
Instagram post 2304888771283579843_13442450 What we do for cake.
Instagram post 2302665269449083186_13442450 It’s a magnolia year for sure.
Instagram post 2295808104927071821_13442450 A long time ago, Joey talked about his crush on this particular alien-like flower with a good friend of ours. Months later, little bulbs arrived in the mail. We put them in the ground last fall, and now they are everywhere. If that isn’t some kind of magic, I don’t know what is. ✨ (🙏🏻 to @wildflowers1 for the cool vase, too.)
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