I am sitting here, in a friend’s apartment in Berlin with snow falling outside and fireworks going off, thinking of an appropriate way to sum up the past year. It was hard, it was a struggle, it was difficult and heartbreaking on so many levels for so many different people. In a year of hardship there were also a lot of wonderful things that happened: I started grad school and found a career that I truly love, my boyfriend completed his Masters degree and created a beautiful thesis project and, perhaps best of all, my grandmother survived her hip replacement and a heart attack and is up and walking and laughing again. It only feels appropriate to end this year with something a tart, and a little sweet, and hope that next year (and the next decade) will be a better.
As I sit here eating barley soup I would like to focus on what I’m not doing:
I am not writing a research paper
I am not cobbling together a portfolio
I am not getting high on Sharpie fumes while making a picture book
I am not even lesson planning
I am just sitting here enjoying the quiet in my head. And the barley soup.
Last night I had my last class of the year. Our final project was creating a “big book”, essentially a very large picture book (mine was 13″ x 19″), and an accompanying lesson plan. It was so much fun to see the books my classmates had made, they were so beautiful and creative, and some were just awe-inspiring. Everyone also brought in food and drinks to share. I had been wanting to make these tarts even since Ashley wrote about them on Not Without Salt. I’m so glad I did. Warm and spicy, tart and creamy, light and fluffy, they were a wonderful winter treat*. I had one for breakfast this morning.
Once upon a time, long before I was even a twinkle in his eye, my dad lived in a house in Los Angeles that had an apricot tree in the yard. One summer the apricot tree produced an amazing amount of fruit, and my dad, being the man he is, decided to make jam. My dad and I are devoted lovers of stone fruits- cherries, apricots, plums- they all disappear when laid in front of us. He wanted to preserve the pure, manna from heaven flavor of apricots and decided to add nothing to this jam, no sugar, no lemon juice, no pectin, nothing, and just cook it down until it was nice and thick, golden and gooey. It took him three days. He turned off the stove to sleep, of course, and he says, when it was finally finished, it was sheer heaven.
(Yes, I sometimes write recipes on the cartons cherries come in, I don’t always have paper handy in the kitchen. And yes, that is a picture of my trash after cherry-pitting, it looked so pretty, I couldn’t resist. Reminded me a bit of this post.)
Inspired by this story, and …]
