It was ... interesting.

"Activating the hyper accelerator!" I proclaim, flipping the switch with my thumb as I speak and aiming for the oven's mouth.  I reverse my actions almost instantly.  Not because my father, standing safely behind and to one side of me, says,
    "But be careful."  I do it because at the same instant I am suddenly standing in a cloud of ash.  Coughing, I lower the "hyper accelerator" to the ground and begin brushing black flakes from my skirt. 
    My dad is grinning at me. 
    "Not to aim it straight at the opening at first," he finishes.
    "Yeah, thanks," I reply, but I am grinning as well and suddenly we are both laughing. 
    I lift the leaf-blower again, making certain that it is pointed far away from the opening and gradually move it sideways until the flames begin flowing off the logs and sliding around the edges of the cement doorway.  Occasionally, I glance towards my father, which causes us to break out into laughter every time. 
    The baklava that I pull out of the oven later in the afternoon looks nice enough.  The filo dough has become crisp and golden, cracking at the touch of the knife.  However, my decision to not sweep the ashes out of the oven have proven fatal to the flavor.  The smokiness that added so much flavor to last week's dinner is out of place in this cheese and pastry concoction.  Add that to the fact that the ricotta cheese the recipe called for is one of my least enjoyed textures for food and the baklava is perilously near inedible.  I have had my share of disasters in the kitchen, from using granulated instead of powdered sugar, to burning things to a crisp out of forgetfulness.  This baklava, however, I will remember for different reasons.  I will remember it for that moment of utter and complete pleasure, stemming from my first mistake of the day. 
    I am certain that I was an amusing picture, swinging the leaf blower up, after my dramatic announcement, then having my hair and dress blown back in the sudden rush of air and ash.  That is half of the reason we are standing here, overcome with the need to laugh.  Bt there is more going on than that.  I laugh because I am glad that I amused him, even if I am slightly embarrassed, glancing toward the house and hoping that none of our guests saw.  I know he is not laughing at me, but at the results of my overly hasty actions.  There is no contempt, no mockery, we are simply sharing honest amusement and the joy of each other's company.  I love him, he loves me, and we laugh.

Valentine's Day

      There are spots along the left leg of my jeans, now stiffening, from where the pork brine sloshed out of what I had thought was a securely sealed container.  Now, my youngest sister is cheerily letting me know that my shirt is rubbing against the raw meat on the counter.  I step back momentarily, eying the two foot pork loin, but am now unable to maneuver.  The oven is ready outside, potatoes, scrubbed, but now ashy, line the inside edge.  I have already pulled the meat out of its marinade, sliced it strategically, so that it lay almost flat, crammed the briny smelling mixed olive puree into the cracks and tried to crimp the edges back together.  The meat falls limply back to its new default, flat, and I call to my mother.
    "You're sure we don't have any kitchen twine?"
    I don't really have to wait for her affirmative reply.  As far as I know, we never have had any kitchen twine.  I ask, because I would rather hope that some has been spirited into our cupboards than wash my hands and hunt down a suitable substitute. 
    The hunt, once I decide to begin, is quite short.  In a house where four out of six residents crochet, there is never a dearth of yarn.  I grab the first ball that I see in the sewing room drawer, a rough yarn, formerly destined for dishrag and incidentally a bright, sunflower, yellow. 
    Now, the edge of my shirt still dragging over the edge of the log of raw pork, I draw the length of yarn under the meat.  Under, over, cross, pull tight, knot, under, over, cross, pull tight, knot.  I repeat the pattern, down the length, until the former limpness has converted to a compact bundle that is difficult to fold into the horseshoe shape that will allow it to fit into the oven.  It looks like a strange form of caterpillar, but I could care less if it becomes a butterfly, all I require of it is that it taste good roasted. 

    
    Whenever I play in the kitchen, I eventually come to a point where there is nothing more to do but wait.  Sometimes there is clean-up work to be done, the loading of the dishwasher, after letting the dog do a pre-rinse cycle, wiping counters.  Today, everyone is helping, which gets the job done more quickly than it has to be.  I would never complain about help with dirty dishes, but now I feel like I have nothing to do.  I could go sit on the new, chocolate brown, couches and recline while watching the Olympics and I do, but I’m still just waiting. 
    For me, that is the hardest part of any project.  As long as there is active work to be done, visible progress being made, I can be fairly content.  But to wait, with no control over what is occurring? That’s something I’ve never mastered.
    When I tore my ACL last spring, I was fine with waiting for the surgery.  There was full extension and flexion of my leg to regain, I had a semester to finish out, I had my part time job to work into my spare time.  At the beginning of June, I had the surgery.  For a few painkiller blurred days, I was fine with being an invalid.  Once PT began, I was being pushed and gaining ground constantly.  I learned to walk without limping, how to do strange exercises, and regained some of my previous strength.  But when the physical therapist decided I didn’t need any more appointments, the waiting started.  The two activities I was working towards, running and soccer, were still off limits.  There wasn’t anything I could do that felt like progress.  And I lapsed.  I biked fewer times per week, I lifted weights with less frequency, my strange exercises were now normal... and boring. 
    Every time I bake or cook, there is an element of this same long wait sandwiched into whatever time my current project is going to take.  Admittedly, it is easier to overcome when the project is chocolate chip cookies, which only take twelve minutes.  Still, I’ll be looking in the oven at six minutes, at eight minutes, at ten minutes, no matter how many years in sequence in this same oven they have take precisely twelve minutes. 
    Part of me loves this suspense, being left hanging, not knowing the outcome.  The other part of me wishes that life was a novel, where you can skip to the last pages and see if the ending looks promising before allowing the story a grip on you.  I want to work on this, to concentrate on enjoying even the moments in between the high points.  Somedays, I’m better at this than others.  Today, I will enjoy the togetherness of my family around the table, the sight of my mother sewing at the table, my father using the leaf blower to start the oven fire, working against the gusts of wind that are intent on knocking the flames back down to coals.  Today, I will let the suspense sit there, in the background, but only so that it sharpens the other details of the day for me.  Today... but I think I'd better go check the roast.  Who knows? It might be done half-an-hour early.

Poetry

Some days, words want to be a poem.

Invocation

Come.  Walk.  And let us gather

Silence, around us for a cloak

For this moment I would rather

Keep close the quiet and invoke

Deep stillness, a repose to ease out

The thought and sight and hearing

Of vastness unencompassed, a noiseless shout

Of sheer, stark glory, we are nearing

A perfection of happiness?  This picture

Spins inside, but outward calm

Remains, so that wild bird’s chirr

And first spring flower meet in my palm

                Beauty seen on an infinite sheet

                Realized in a brief, painful, heartbeat

Partied Out

    I'm standing over the kitchen sink, rinsing the soap off of my hands, running the water as softly as possible. 
    "Come in and sit down," my sister calls to me from the other room.
    "I have to finish my homework!" I shout back. 
    "The Saints just scored another touchdown," she yells in return. 
    I sigh.  It doesn't look like the Colts are going to turn this back around.  Turning from the sink, I survey the counters.  Oreos, Mother's Taffy cookies, an emptied bag of potato chips, a scraped clean bowl of dip.  Oh, and the chocolate cupcake batter that I just mixed.  What was I thinking?  I absentmindedly lick the spatula, feeling the heaviness of accumulated junk-food from Super-bowl Sunday in my stomach, but unwilling to stop eating the rich cupcake batter. 
    I received the cupcake cookbook on my last birthday, a gift from my mother, full of tempting full page color photographs.  Strange how the results never seem to live up to the picture.  I consider the unfairness of food photography.  Sure, the pictures in the book always look better.  No one has to eat that food, the stylist can do whatever they like to it.  Like the contrast between the McDonalds commercials that run between football plays and the actual food you find yourself presented with at the counter, the food is always better on the other side of the camera. 
    At this point, though, I don't much care if the cupcakes burn to a crisp, sit in the oven as batter overnight, never reaching that magical point of change to solid food, or explode when I turn my back on them.  At least if they do that, I'll have something interesting to blog about.  The oven's temperature was measuring over 999 degrees Fahrenheit the last time I checked it, but I've left it for nearly three hours now, the over-heated stones giving me an excuse to sit on the floor and play Canasta while constantly nibbling junk-food and berating the on-screen football players for not making better plays.  
    Now that I've left it, I'm worn out from not moving enough.  An odd paradox, the fact that resting all day only seems to make you more tired by the end.  It's dark out and cold, but I'd rather let my feet get chilled than walk the extra few yards to my nearest pair of shoes.  I wear my headlamp to carry the cupcake tins out to the oven, another benefit I'm certain previous brick-oven bakers lacked.  At this moment, the headlamp is a welcome help.  Previous bakers most likely were done with their day's baking by this time of night anyway.   I tilt the heavy square of cement that is the oven door away from the opening and swing it to the side.  Not wanting to bother with pushing the barely visible fire further into the back of the oven, I shove the pans in, pointedly ignoring the ashes that fall over the far edges.  So some of the cupcakes would have a bit of ash baked into them.  It wasn't as though we really needed the extra sugar.
    Twenty minutes pass, in which I do not much of anything, still looking in annoyance at the cookies arrayed on the counter.  I can't bring myself to sit down and watch the last few depressing plays of the game, when it's fairly obvious that the Saints aren't going to let go of their lead.
    The idyllic-seeming day has begun to disintegrate, like they always seem to.  While you work through your math homework, while you run errands, while you clean your room, you wish there would be one day, one day where you could simply sit around, eating unhealthy food, playing games, being absolutely lazy and incompetent.  Then you do it and instead of feeling satisfied, you wonder why you ever wished for it.  Something like when I was younger and would wish I was sick so that I wouldn't have to study - right up until I actually was ill. 
    I check on the cupcakes.  The moment I lift the oven door away, I see the front row collapse as the cold air hits them.  Lovely.  There goes my plan to pipe filling into them.  The toothpick comes out sticky and I shiver my way back into the house.  
    This time last night, I was panting, gasping for breath that wouldn't quite come, as I tried to get a stubborn soccer ball between the other team's goalposts.  I was sweaty, exhausted.  The knee I'd had surgery on was beginning to ache. I was utterly happy.  We lost the game.  I was still full of excitement.  Last night, I had slept soundly. 
    Tonight, I pace the kitchen, twitching towards another piece of sugar, frowning at the dirty counters.  The cupcakes need to be done now, I no longer care if they're raw in the center.  I grab two potholders and open the sliding door again.  When I deposit the hot pans on the stovetop, I can clearly see the burnt edges of the back row, in contrast to the sunken craters in the front row.  It no longer matters.  I'm past it, done with it, done with today.  I leave the cupcakes on the counter and go to bed.

Introduction and Fire

    I want to experiment with how far I can take a wood-burning oven.  I already know that it makes the best pizza and works perfectly for roasting corn, but will it bake cakes?  Will it ruin puff-pastry?  Can I use it like a crock-pot, letting the warmed bricks slowly release heat into a pan? Today, however, the first order of business was actually starting a fire in the oven.  A wood-burning oven is not something you simply walk out into the backyard and use.  You have to start the fire in the morning, allow it to heat the firebricks through, then push the coals to the back and clean the ash away before you can start cooking.  And despite the fact that I helped build the oven, from the ground up, and have cooked in it a multitude of times before, I have never actually had to build the fire and judge when the oven was ready to be used.  So I gathered up the wood; logs, kindling, an old phonebook, and the matches and approached the oven, with our dog running in circles around my legs and hoping I would throw her Frisbee.      I know the basic principles of building a fire and halfway attempted to follow them, as I thrust my upper body partially into the oven for a better reach, trying to avoid acquiring a dusting of soot in my hair from the ceiling.  Then I began waving a lit match next to the crumpled papers, forgetting to start in the back and then having to twist awkwardly to avoid burning my wrist on the rising flames as I reached deeper into the oven.  The papers burned merrily, some of them sparking green.  I watched hopefully, silently asking the sticks to catch fire, and then a few scant minutes later was  left with charred black flakes, edged with orange, and an unburnt pile of logs.  For the second attempt, I gathered up more twigs, smaller branches, and pulled the larger logs out.  Maybe I had intimidated the small fire with such large pieces of fuel.  This time, the wood did catch, and I uncurled my numbing fingers and rushed back into the house, where I could watch the smoke rise from the comfort of the warm kitchen. 
    For the next two hours, I kept the fire burning, then I used a laser thermometer to check the temperature.  500 degrees Fahrenheit.  I let the fire die out as quickly or slowly as it wanted to, going back to check the temperature of the bricks one more time.  Two hours after the fire had burned away, it was still 325 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that I will mostly likely need quite often in my experiments.  And it only took four hours to get it there.  So, now I know what needs to be done to prepare the oven for the first test, which will come sometime next week.
    I wonder why it is that next time I will see if I can get my brother to build the fire for me.  It isn't that I don't know how to do it, because I just did.  In fact, I get a feeling of satisfaction from being able to build a fire that can be sustained, that will serve a purpose, be it for cooking or for heating the house.  When confronted with the building of a fire, however, I always have a feeling of apprehension.  Going through the culinary arts program and even cooking day to day at home, I have burned myself repeatedly.  Sometimes the burns are small, sometimes more serious, but they don't bother me.  I don't think I have ever burned myself on open flame, though, more often it's a pan I've forgotten was hot, or spilled boiling liquid.  Why, then, is there this fear of fire?  It is entrancing to watch, contained in the oven, but I instinctively avoid getting too close to it.  Perhaps it is the very characteristic that makes it so interesting to look at, its unpredictability, combined with its ability to unmake anything too near it, from logs to plastic utensils, that makes me shy away from it at the same time being drawn towards it.