Seeking Stability

Your comments about lessons learned were so beautiful and inspiring. I am honored to think that such good people come here - voluntarily, no less - to read my own mutterings. Thank you.

I went to TNNA, that big trade show for fiber folks, and returned as I always do: inspired yet somewhat muddled. It's a challenge to be someplace where everyone's radio frequencies are turned up so high. I can't help but pick up lots of static where I'm used to getting a strong, clear signal all my own.  It's as if I came back with about six heads sticking out of my own. Removing them feels like thinning seedlings from the garden, but it must be done.

I've planted too many ideas for the future, and they simply cannot all grow in the space allotted to them. I always wish I could ask a neighbor to come over and thin my seedlings for me. Right now I rather wish some wise person could stare at the mess in my brain, say, "That one, that one, and that one," pluck out the rest and toss them on the compost pile before I can protest. Of course that's the absolute worst way to make decisions, so I'll continue to muddle my way through and trust rightness to prevail. Self-doubt is a mighty foe.

In the meantime, the strawberries are already done. How did July get here so quickly? I picked the last harvest and am making some ice cream for family that arrives this evening. It's always grounding to be around kids. You're too busy making fart noises and grabbing fragile things out of small, swift-moving hands to dwell on bigger questions like, "What should I do with my life?"

Plus I no longer need to dwell on that particular question, because the answer has come to me in the form of STABILIZED WHIPPED CREAM. I'm not a huge fan of regular buttercream frosting. It's always too thick and goopy and buttery for summer. Even for me, it's just too much butter. But whenever I try to do a simple whipped cream concoction, it always goes runny on me.

Well, my friends, professional bakeries have a trick. If you didn't know already, they stabilize their whipped cream with gelatin. I experimented a few days ago and am in love.

Dissolve 1 teaspoon of gelatin in about 4 teaspoons of water, let it sit until it gets goopy, then heat it on the stove just until dissolved. Whip 1 cup of cream like you normally would, but just as the cream starts to thicken, drizzle the cooled gelatin into the cream. If you're really gluttonous, add a dollop of lemon curd.

With stabilized whipped cream you can do things like this, and it won't instantly topple:

I was so fascinated the process that I over-whipped the cream (you can see it's a little globby) but HOLY COW, between the extra texture and the lemon curd I was ready to bathe in this thing.

I think I'll set aside some strawberries and try pureeing them and folding them into some stabilized whipped cream. Ohhh, maybe alternate lemon and strawberry creams in a trifle? Oy, my arteries are hardening just imagining the possibilities.

What about you? Were you hit by the horrible storms earlier this week? Is your power back on? What's on your stove, in your oven, or chilling in the fridge? And how do you thin your own mental garden? Please, I'd love to know.

Lessons Learned?

It's a chilly Monday morning and June is already half over. Am I the only one feeling sideswiped by the speeding-up of time? I long for the days when I was 12 and summer vacation lasted f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Actually, no. You couldn't pay me to go back to life when I was 12. Except maybe for a day, just so I could take back all the power I'd handed over to undeserving people.

Lately I've been trying to view my life through a lens of "lessons learned." Pausing mid-stream, looking around at where I am, and asking myself what I've learned from this experience, or what I may be in the process of learning. Sometimes there's an answer, sometimes just a blank cartoon bubble and that frustratingly aimless feeling.

Already I can tell you I've learned a lot from my days off as an impostor-baker. I've learned how to make granola - a really, really good granola that gets me out of bed every morning - which has, in turn, taught me that I actually like granola.

I got to be on TV and share my buttermilk drop biscuits, where I learned that if your pre-measured baking powder sticks to its little cup, just pretend it didn't and keep going. Well, I also learned - re-learned, let's say - the importance of laughing at myself and moving on.

I've learned that it's one thing to serve beautiful baked things to friends and family at home, quite another to serve them to customers at a coffee shop. At home, I can coerce people into eating and enjoying what I make. They can claim, "Oh that's too pretty to eat," to which I can reply, "I know! And I'm cutting you a piece right now. Dig in!"

But at the coffee shop I have to watch people pass these things by, enviously declaring them "too pretty to eat." As if we weren't worthy of beauty. I can't protest, cut a slice, and shove it in their face. By the end of the week, I end up dumping my masterpiece in the compost bucket. People seem more comfortable with slightly sloppy sweets, the irregular cookie, the simple cupcake, and I've adjusted my menu accordingly.

I've had a lot of firsts already. I've cooked with rhubarb, made quiche and blanched almonds and whipped egg yolks into a frosting that was so good, I literally had to ask one of the staff to dispose of the leftovers. I've enjoyed the company of young people who are still gazing into the world with fresh, optimistic eyes. And I was called "chef" by a man who'd worked at a restaurant I reviewed in San Francisco 20 years ago. He gave me his resume. I nearly imploded from mortification.

The pretty stuff? I'm already looking forward to releasing all that pent-up creative energy on family when they all visit next month. They'll be hit with so much pretty they won't know what to do. "Worldwide Gluten Usage Quadruples," the headlines will read. "Sources cite Maine baker as cause."

What have gone over well are the Claramels. I love making them - I especially love the luxury of being able to wander over to the giant shiny La Marzocco machine, previously off-limits to me as a customer, and pour my own steaming shots of espresso. I love hearing people come in and ask if the Claramels are ready yet.

How refreshing to communicate with people in a primal, nonverbal way. Don't get me wrong, I'm a writer, I love words. But I also love seeing someone take a bite, pause, close her eyes, and go somewhere you can't possibly lead with words alone.

And the book? Weirdly enough, the very day I asked myself what I was learning from the writing process was the the day I finished the manuscript.

It's still a teenager barely out of high school. Much work remains. This is the Knitter's Book of Clara*, by far the most meaningful and personal thing I've done to date. I'm proud of it and terrified at the same time. I've made something that's very real in my mind, but just a handful of trusted people have even seen it or reacted to it yet. The road is still long. I don't even know what the book will look like or when it will be published, and lord knows I have no idea if you'll like it or not. I so hope you will.

For now, it's in the best possible hands, so I'll try to let go and keep moving forward. I'm noodling on something big and exciting to do with wool, which I hope to be able to announce in the coming months. With it? I imagine a slew of lessons ahead, just waiting to be learned.



What about you? Has life taught you any lessons lately?

*No that's not the real title

Clara's Day Off

What a ride!

The trip to Cleveland was fantastic. The Knitting Daily TV filming went really well. Which is to say I didn't say anything too stupid, I didn't choke on my own tongue, and my hair didn't spontaneously combust. It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. Put me in front of yarn and I can talk for days. Lucky for you, the segment only lasts five minutes at a time.

While I was in the Cleveland airport I happened to walk past a very tall, handsome man and think, "Hey wait a minute, he looks familiar." I suddenly realized it was Michael Ruhlman. Someone I happen to think is perfectly splendid. His 3-2-1 pie dough recipe from Ratio singlehandedly helped me achieve a lifelong goal of mastering pie dough. Sounds like a little thing, but when you live in Maine in a farmhouse overlooking 27 acres of blueberry fields, pies figure prominently.

I made a nodding, bobbing, blushing fool out of myself but did shake his hand, and he was most gracious about the whole thing. It felt like a good-luck omen for the days of shooting that followed.

So now I'm back home, working hard on the next book, tending my beloved Knitter's Review, juggling other writing and teaching and speaking projects. Yet in the midst of it all, something rather wonderful has just happened. Wonderful in a completely random and potentially crazy way.

By now you know I love to bake. I also love to make caramels, dark murky moody ones that shut people up and put faraway gazes on their faces. This is my therapy. When life gets tough, when I've run out of adjectives and need a break from my writing, I go into the kitchen, pre-heat the oven, and take out some butter to soften.

Until now, the biggest problem has been in simply finding enough people to consume all that I make. I give things to friends and neighbors, I fatten my family when they're visiting, I even haul bags of Claramels to conferences and festivals. Yet still, I produce more than I can consume.

I also love a good cappuccino. There's one place here in town, when I'm in Portland, that has been my home base all these years. I've written practically every Knitter's Review there, its tables have helped me write three and a half books. Somehow I think better when sitting at one of their tables, nursing a perfect cappuccino with a heart drawn in its foam. The buzz of people around me is just enough distraction to keep that annoying voice in my head (the "Thinking is hard!! Let's go get ice cream!! You can't do it!!" voice) at bay.

A few weeks ago they opened a second outpost called Crema. It's in an old brick building across the street from the Portland harbor. It's beautiful, wide open, all brand new. And it has a kitchen. Not a huge one, but a kitchen nonetheless. With a beautiful baker's oven.

I came to find out that they'd recently had a falling out with their longtime baker. They were struggling to keep up. They were stressed out, spread thin. They had breads and scones and such figured out, but what they really needed was...someone to make beautiful, delicious, special things. Well hello.

I love these people and I owe so much of my career to them. Which may explain why I found myself saying, "Can I help?" and why, starting next week, I'll be spending my day off in that little kitchen.

I'll be making pretty cakes and absurdly overdecorated cupcakes and stirring, cutting, and wrapping individual Claramels. Complete strangers will come up to a counter, point to something I've made, and pay money for it. This will be a first. They may love it, they may gobble it without tasting a thing, they may take one bite and spit the rest out. I'm hoping that having three books published has prepared me for the negative review. Like one complaining that, which one was it now, The Knitter's Book of Yarn, didn't have enough crochet in it.

This whole thing may not work out, or maybe it may only work out for a while. I don't know what the future holds, so for now I'll just hold onto the excitement.

But let's get back to the more important topics: What should I bake on my day off? Do you have any favorite recipes? I'm all ears.

A Letter from Maine

And so we find ourselves knee deep in a March that has no piles of dirty snow, no roads thick with lingering sand. Our boots are still lined up by the front door, freshly polished and ready for a call to duty that never really came. Strange.

In typical fashion, people around here are couching their enthusiasm with a sense of foreboding. Mother Nature has a mind of her own, they say. Gloat too much about the gentle winter and we'll surely have icebergs blocking the harbor by August 1st. I tend to agree, if only out of principle. It's never good to think you've outsmarted nature.

The mild winter has helped balance my internal roller-coaster of volatility and risk. I'm writing another book, you see. Number four on my whirlwind tour-de-bookshelf. It's a completely different beast than the first three, much more intimate. Utterly dear to my heart, which puts far more at stake. Even on the days when I'm feeling moody and peevish and stuck and terrified, though, I'm savoring the process. If nothing else, it seems like life should be about taking risks, yes? Leaning into the wind.

In the same spirit, I'll soon add "television personality" to my non-existent resume. Knitting Daily TV has invited me to be their resident yarn person for all 13 segments of the next season. It films in Ohio next week. I think it's a grand idea, and the whole thing is so vast and unknown that I don't even have a framework for being nervous. In the meantime, my home has become a veritable swatchery as I prepare sample after sample. You can't say, "This yarn is most exquisite in lace," and point your freshly manicured hands to an empty table, now can you? Well I suppose you could, but not for this show.

The promise of spring, and then summer...that excites me. The return of spring peepers, then the crickets and frogs, the fireflies, the long melodious song of the hermit thrush from deep in the woods. Opening the windows, letting in fresh air again. Moving out onto the porch, tending my garden. Then my family arrives and I get to shower them with buttery cakes and sweet pies still warm from the oven.

Those are my rewards at the end of a particularly challenging run. "All writing is launching yourself into the darkness," Paul Theroux once said, "and hoping for light and a soft landing." I won't know the landing for a long time to come, but I shall keep putting one word in front of the other and see where it takes me.