©Sara Remington, View from Nepenthe

BigSurMagic

As yet another way to avoid the ever growing stack of papers on my desk, thought instead to point you to a complimentary article about my book and our family in the spring issue of Carmel Magazine, with fabulous visuals to boot. You can link to “Big Sur Magic” here, also found on my press pages in the right column. Writer Michael Chatfield’s love of the region and esteem for Nepenthe’s magical setting lures even this reluctant homegirl back into the “heart and soul” of a place that I am so privileged to enjoy.

I’ve been plenty blessed with fabulous press over the past few months, not least the above mention, along with many excellent blog reviews, as well–see 5-second rule’s take on my grandmother’s minestrone soup, or fall in love with Lori Times Five and her love letter to Nepenthe, as I did, then go ahead and follow her, and be soothed by her words. In fact, if you want a good laugh and enjoy food, follow Cheryl too. And if you missed the Q & A by Sarah Henry, who blogs at Lettuce Eat Kale, you can find it here.

On other news, my post on Seville orange marmalade was picked up by Catavino, a website focused on the food and specifically wine of Portugal and Spain. Browsing through their site made me want to hop on the next plane to that very beautiful and lyrical part of the world, but since I can’t, just yet…

I continue to update my Events page, so please take a look.

Sacramento and Co (News 10) is interviewing me on March 10th, and I’ll be having a book signing that night at the Avid Reader, downtown.

Next month, I go south again for a reading/event at Latitudes 33 in Laguna Beach, the small town where my grandparents first started out–marrying on the fly at the nearby mission, and later shacking up in a little cottage by the sea, where they also had their first entree into the film industry.

As it turned out, Paramount studios constructed a Neapolitan fishing village just across from their little cottage where they filmed Give us this Night (1936) starring Jan Kiepura and Gladys Swarthout in what my grandparents described as the “operatic opus to end all operatic opuses.”  They had minor rolls as fisherman in the crowd.

Even more exciting, I just found out that my book is a finalist for best book of the year (for food and wine writing) with the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA). Winners will be announced in early April.

Additionally, the venerable Kepler’s in Menlo Park will post an interview with me and book trailer on their website, any day now. It will include some photos and images not seen in my book.

As always, you can purchases signed copies of my book at the Phoenix Shop–and they’ll pop in the mail to you. I’m happy to personalize them, so be sure to write that in the note section of your order.

If you happen to be visiting Carmel this weekend stop by Partington Ridge Co in the Crossroads (Susan Carvey, the owner, used to live in Big Sur and has her own great stories to tell), where you will find my book among many other great treasures, or at the always lovely Carmel Bay Co. downtown.

Don’t be shy in making a comment, or following up with your own Nepenthe story.

I guess they call it Fat Tuesday for a reason, because we all know if we were to indulge in too many of these fried doughy treats (above)–a carnival favorite– that’s exactly how our day (and likely we) would feel. But don’t let me scare you off with that kind of talk; it’s no time to be thinking skinny, and certainly no fun when there are warm beignets in the house.

Besides I’m about to go swimming and it’s all in the name of recipe testing and tasting and finding out a little more about Mardi Gras, the annual celebration inevitably linked to this day of merriment. It’s no wonder I saw a masked character dancing around the light pole this morning on the way to school (And I thought it had to do with being in Berkeley).

In fact, Fat Tuesday refers to the ancient Christian tradition of indulging on rich foods the day before the fasting season of Lent began, or as Rob Kasper of the Baltimore Sun laid it out in his column, as the last day for sinners to indulge. It also marks the culmination of carnival season, usually starting around the Epiphany and typically ending on the day before Ash wednesday, hence the big day, or Mardi Gras, as it is known in French. In other words, it’s one big Tuesday party. But enough of that, the truth is I have always wanted to make these little pillows of sin and today’s festivities gave me the prompt I needed.

Beignets are basically doughnuts–puffy, square-shaped, crispy gems liberally coated with powdered sugar and made famous by the folks in New Orleans. Some beignets are filled with jam, some are made with yeast doughs, and risen overnight, and others not. The following recipe is an adaptation of  chef Paul Prudhomme’s yeast dough recipe combined with a recipe I found on Epicurious.

The dough is easy to pull together, the frying a bit of a task–make sure you have a deep pot for cooking, the right kind of oil, paper towels on hand, and the patience to withstand the heat.

And then, indulge.

It aint Fat Tuesday for nothing.

Buttermilk Beignets

½ up whole milk

1 cup cold buttermilk

1 packet (about 2 ½ teaspoons) active dry yeast

3 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons butter, softened

3 cups flour, plus more for rolling

Pinch salt

Peanut or Canola oil, for frying

Powdered sugar, for dusting

Scald the milk in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, add the cold buttermilk and transfer to a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir in yeast and sugar; let stand for a few minutes. Add the flour and salt, mixing on low speed, using a dough hook, or beat in by hand using a wooden spoon. Beat in the butter. Continue beating until dough just comes together and forms a ball. It will still be a little tacky and moist, like Danish dough. Transfer to a lightly floured surface, knead until dough is smooth, about 5 minutes. Place in a clean bowl, cover with a towel, and set aside in a warm place for an hour.

Pour enough oil into a pot to fill 2 to 3 inches and bring to 375ºF over medium heat. Have paper towels lined up on plates ready for laying out the fried doughnuts.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces. Roll out one-half the dough on a lightly floured surface, about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Using a sharp knife, cut into 2-inch squares.

Gently stretch each square, carefully slip into the hot oil–a few at a time. Cook until beignets are puffy and golden all over, turning often with a slotted spoon, about 2 to 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels, and dust liberally with powdered sugar while still warm. Repeat with remaining dough.

It’s not yet morning as I sit here writing in a little kitchen nook at this seaside house where I am staying. I was up early to drive my daughter to the bakery where she is working for the day, where she will jump in a white van soon after and head to the farmers’ market where there will be bustles of people and gorgeous fruits and vegetables, just picked from the farm, and flowers in a multitude of colors laid out on makeshift tables. A melancholic sky hovers over the cobbled houses as I drive back through still streets, some with golden lights illuminating other early risers, like the old man next door who writes late into the night and again at this faint hour. The sea mingles with the morning drift as the distant dreams of gulls flutter in the background.

I’m thinking how much the world turns and changes and circles and comes back again, recalling my daughter standing in the bakery  leaning against the hard metal table, just minutes ago, paper coffee cup in hand, watching as rows of croissants and sugar-layered pastries are lined up on large trays, listening with a teenagers glint as she is given instructions. It’s strange enough to think I am who I am and she is she and meaning that she is my daughter and that I’m this age, and only a year from now she will be moving on to college or whatever/wherever she choses to go, and perhaps it will be me standing there, leaning in similarly (again) talking to my step-mother who has been working like this ever since I can remember, and under whose direction I first rolled out that same flaky dough and made pots of sticky, strawberry jam and picked apricots in an orchard somewhere out in the dusty beyond near Gilroy.

My daughter who has always known a good croissant vs an ok one, but  never so much showed an interest in learning the art until recently, out of the blue, told me that she wanted to become a pastry chef (or a dancer, or a business woman). She spent over an hour the other day thumbing through a book on Pacific rim cuisine picking out the recipes she wanted to make this weekend–tapioca with caramelized mango, tropical fruit salad with fresh coconut. Was it the dessert book I gave her for Christmas, I wondered? You know, the kind of present you give because you know they’ll love it but they won’t admit it, but instead look at you kind of sideways. Not that it really mattered, it only made me smile inside and hope that whatever she choses to do she’ll do it because she loves it and because it makes her happy.

Just this week, she asked me in all seriousness why I didn’t become a UPS driver when I feigned a sigh over the state of my work situation and the challenges to keep up in the freelance market. “They make $25 per hour to start,” she said, looking at me, her head cocked ever so slightly, and truly curious. I remember those years of watching and looking around me and trying to understand the mechanics of living and working and finding out what it is we want to do with our lives that makes any sense at all. Never would I be like them, I used to think–them being anyone and everyone around me at the time, who lived what seemed like boring, repetitive lives in a flat city where they grew vegetables. I remember it being hard to fathom, completely, what one did with oneself to make it different.

I didn’t go to college right off, as she probably will. No one ever mentioned it, though I wanted to and had the grades. Instead I got out of high school a year early, waved my certificate in the air amidst an ocean of purple and gold streamers on graduation day feeling terribly lonely amidst all these kids I didn’t relate to. That fall I went to Europe where so much became alive; a year or so later I moved to Hawaii.

Not sure what it is about today or even this week that stirs these memories. How it is we begin in one place and meander, and root, and find our way through the forrest, eventually.