Tag Archives: coffee

My Peach Tree

September 4, 2014 By in Recipes Tags: , , , , , 10 Comments

Grilled Peaches and Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Coffee-Mascarpone Cream and Smoky Peach Purée

peaches and cream
I’ve written a tad more eloquently about having only picked or plucked, never grown or harvested, my own food. While I’ve not tested my thumb, I assume it’s black. But the real reason why I don’t plant is that I rent and lack space in the city. And the even realer reason is harder to admit: I’m lazy. Lazy when it comes to this, anyway. I enjoy supporting my local farmers—it makes my summer. But, really, I revel in being able to eat nourishing, soul-hugging, vibrant, delicious food without having to lift that finger, no matter what color it is. I love to sweat, I love the sun, I love produce, I love feeling satisfied. You’d think that I’d work for those things. Maybe one day, when I have the space, I’ll have the incentive to. Because I like most things (crème fraîche, almond milk, nut butter, granola, ice cream, mayo etc.) best when homemade; homegrown would bring things to a new level.

Despite having only an unkempt (but charming!) little swatch of backyard at my current apartment, which I’ve lived in for a bit over a year, I have a peach tree on the property. Yes, a flourishing peach tree, just there in a yard in Eastern Massachusetts. We do nothing and the peaches come. Nothing. It’s glorious. Well, it would be glorious if, in the two seasons I’ve shared a space with this tree, I’d climbed a ladder to pick even one of its rosy fruits. If I had, I’d eat it right there, fly-attracting juice staining my cheeks, my clothes, the ground.

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Obsession

May 15, 2014 By in Recipes Tags: , , , , 10 Comments

Yeast-Raised Donut Twofer: Coffee-Cardamom Cream-Filled Donuts + Browned Butter–Almond Glazed Donuts

short stack
My first donut (no, not doughnut) was not ring-shaped, nor was it round and filled. My first donut, like me at the time, I guess, was a Munchkin from Dunkin’ Donuts. On weekday holidays off from school, my mom would pick up a box from the Dunkin’ down the road from our home while I was still sleeping. Along with it, she’d buy a chocolate milk—a balanced breakfast, indeed. There was always chocolate milk with donuts but never chocolate milk without donuts. Come to think of it, I was really deprived of chocolate milk as a kid…

Dunkin’ Donuts are probably the first donuts that come to mind for folks who live in New England, unless they’re lucky enough to have a small mom-and-pop donut shop in their town. I was not growing up. For those of you who do not live near a Dunkin’ but perhaps near a Krispy Kreme or a Shipley (I’ve had donuts from the former but not from the latter), Munchkins—donut holes, really (they’ve got to do something with them)—come in a cute cardboard box with a handle. They’re staple classroom party, bake sale, and office kitchenette fare. I’m not sure if this is still true, but when I was a kid, they came in plain cake, powdered cake, cinnamon powdered cake, glazed chocolate cake, glazed yeasted, and yeasted jelly.

I have fond memories of those Munchkin’ mornings, but I didn’t realize until recently how deeply connected I feel to the donut, because I just don’t eat them that often; I avoid sugar in the morning, and most establishments have either sold out of their donuts or merely have shelves speckled with a few stale specimens by the time I’d like to eat them. But over the past five weeks, my latent devotion has become quite clear.

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