Weekly Dish

Hey everybody. Happy New Year. Really, I mean that; I hope you won’t interpret my post title as an anti-New Year sentiment.

Because I actually love the idea of starting off the first day of the first month of a new year by looking ahead, thinking through goals I’d like to accomplish, dreaming about possible plans I’d like to make, anticipating what the future holds with ambition and hope and optimism.

But, for me, the looking back is more important, if only because it colors the lenses through which I see my future with a tint of needed realism. Glancing back over the past 12 months to see where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and how I’ve spent my time reveals that if I learned anything in 2007, it is that I absolutely cannot predict what my life will look like under any given circumstance.

For instance, everyone says that having a baby changes everything. But, I found, until you have one yourself, living under your roof, occupying space in your routine, working her way into every second of every one of your days, you absolutely cannot imagine how those changes will affect you personally. Yes, it is a universal truth that babies change your life. So many people told me that. But I think it might also be true that how a baby changes each person’s life is remarkably different, uniquely tailored to each individual parent and each individual baby. And no one told me that part. For, in January of 2007, when I looked ahead to May and tried to picture our life with a baby, I could not possibly have imagined the reality of Josie in all her Josie-ness. Perhaps that’s why we are almost forced to speak of parenting in cliches, because the experience, with its ever-nuanced individualism, evades articulation.

And still, here I am, trying to articulate what it has meant to be a mom, or more precisely, what it has meant for me to be a mother to this one little baby girl named Josie.

And that is perhaps the most surprising thing to me of all: that in the midst of the busiest I have ever been, I feel compelled to carve out at least a few moments here and there to get into my kitchen and make something and to return to this little space and write about it. Mostly about the food, but also, as it is impossible for me to separate food from how I understand myself, about how I am making sense of my life in these busy days. I may not be the most regular of bloggers, (here is where I am not promising to do better because who knows if that will be possible or not?), or the most consistent of commenters on other blogs (here is where I tell you that I would so, so like to promise to do better because I really do read lots and lots of your blogs when I find the time, but almost always it is after the commenting conversations are long over), or the most reliable of responders to the very nice comments left here (and here I am having to use every ounce of self-control I can muster not to promise, but just to say that I am making a concerted effort to do better on this front, to jump into the comment conversation, even if a few days late, even if just to say, “Hey Everybody, thanks for saying you were here. It really does mean a lot, and it is rude of me not to say so.”). But I am so very grateful for every one of you who take the time to read the words I put out there, to try the recipes I bring you, and especially to communicate with me about what you’ve read or tried.

My gratitude is really all I feel capable of promising at the beginning of this year, as I hate the thought of making promises I won’t be able to keep. We all have to start somewhere, though, and one could do worse than committing to feel thankful.

Now, it seems I promised you an egg white recipe.

If you made the orange butter cookies, you will find yourself with 4 lonely egg whites with nowhere to go. I hate to see much of anything go to waste, but especially egg whites, because it is so easy to whip them into something lovely. Like a meringue. If you have a pie to top, you can certainly make meringue for that purpose, but I like to make little meringue shells to have an easy dessert on hand for dinner guests. Once the meringues are baked, slice some strawberries, or top with a dollop of lemon curd or bittersweet chocolate, and you have a gorgeous presentation in a snap. They look like little pillows of cloud or piles of snow, and they crunch with the bite of sugar without any heaviness — almost like sweetened air, concentrated into a crispy white case. They won’t be the most complicated dessert on the table, but with the right filling, they can be quite pretty (unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of a filled one because all of mine got eaten.) At least you’ll have turned leftover egg whites into something pretty and sweet, a sort of blank canvas to fill as you like. Sort of like a new year. I won’t make any promises about what yours will turn out to be like, but here’s hoping it’s filled with many good things. Happy 2008, everyone!

Meringue Shells

–adapted from The All New Joy of Cooking

The one rule for making meringues is not to step away from the mixer. The texture changes quickly, and you don’t want to miss the right time to add the sugar or stop beating. I also have had better luck with the crispy texture I like on cold, dry days, which is perhaps why I always end up making meringues in winter. They will keep in an airtight container for about a week before they lose their crunch. My favorite way to serve them is by filling the cavity with sliced strawberries, drizzling a little strawberry jam on top, and finishing with a spoonful of plain whipped cream, but fill with whatever strikes your fancy. They are versatile enough to handle a lot of variations, just be careful with overly sweet fillings — the meringues themselves provide most of the sweetener you’ll need.

1/2 cup egg whites (the 4 whites from my 4 large eggs measured exactly 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup granulated sugar, whirred in the food processor for a couple of minutes
Preheat your oven to 225 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar on medium speed, until soft peaks form and the whites are all foamy, like this:

Now, turn your mixer to high, and sprinkle in the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, very gradually, until the mixture holds stiff peaks and becomes very shiny, like this:

Now, spoon out puffs of meringue onto the baking sheet, carving out a hollow with the back of your spoon, so the shells look like this:

Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on how you like the texture. David likes his to be soft in the center still, sort of marshmallowy, so I tend to take them out after 1 1/2 hours. If you want them very crispy all the way through, leave them for the full 2 hours. You can also turn the oven off and leave them in there to cool and dry out even more. This recipe will make about a dozen fist-sized shells. They will keep in an airtight container for at least a week, longer if it’s cold and dry outside (at least in my experience).

Posted: Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm Filed under: Something Sweet, Eggs, Baking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.