The Only Link I Care About This Week
Consuming Two Cult Things:
The Only Recipe I Care About This Week
Southern California Summer weather starts in August. Hard to picture against the stereotypical ‘Sunny and 75’ image you may have of us here on the west coast, but trust me — June and July are typically some of our coolest months and oftentimes feel more like Autumn than scorching September and October ever do. With that in mind, it’s hard to think of summer as almost over, especially considering the few months of sweaty apartment nights I have ahead of me, but taking stock of where I am now, I’m very happy to say that I’ve had a really nice little summer. There are many types of Good Summer.
Lots of Travel Summer.
In a Lot of Weddings Summer.
Big Exciting Change Summer.
Constant Friend Time Summer.
Summer Fling Summer (which, for the record, I did try to pull off this year. A story for another week.)
However, I would define my summer as Nice and Simple Summer. A lot of warm evening walks, early bedtimes, low spending, bike rides to my favorite grocery store, dinners on my patio, seeing movies in actual theaters, and reading good books with all the windows open and the ceiling fan spinning. On the whole, feeling more comfortable being alone than I ever have before (she pauses and wonders if that’s a good thing or a bad thing…) Nothing new to report in the very best way. Generally, keeping it nice and simple. To some, I’ve just described the weekly routine of their elderly grandparent. To me, I’ve just described a pretty idyllic few months!
What this summer has also given me is time. Long stretches of the day to let linger and to settle into. An entire note on my phone dedicated to new ideas and projects that soul and schedule weren’t ready to be excited about until now. Some of which require planning and thought and care and some… are Berry Crumble.
Here’s how it went: Goes to farmers market. Sees berries. Imagines the soupy swirl of the juice of those berries marbling in a pool of Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean ice cream beneath a pile of berry crumble. Buys berries. Makes Berry crumble.
See what I mean? Nice and Simple Summer.
Berry Cobbler
By: A lil of me and a lil of Claire Saffitz
INGREDIENTS
Berries
3-4 pints of your favorite berries (I used a mix of raspberries, blackberries and blueberries)
1/3 cup of granulated sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. of Kosher salt
Crumble
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick cooking)
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar (2.3 oz / 65g)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces, chilled
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375º
In a medium bowl, gently fold the berries and all of the other ingredients. Taste a few. This recipe hinges on the berries, which depending on many factors, taste wildly different. So, if it’s tasting a little sweet, add a little more lemon. A little too tart? Toss in a few more spoonful of sugar. Let’s stop being nice to our berry crumble and start being real.
Once you’ve gotten your berry mix to a place where you consider skipping the rest of this recipe and just eating it with a large spoon, you’ve nailed it. Set it aside.
In a separate medium bowl, stir the flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt together until well mixed. Add the cut butter into the bowl. This next step is what makes crumble, in my opinion, far easier than it’s summer dessert cohorts (pie, cobbler, etc.). Instead of having to be mindful of over lots of factors like keeping the butter cold, mixing the ingredients and getting tough / not flakey, say, pie crust, but still getting it to a place where it’s roll out-able, you can’t really mess up the crumble. The best method to blend the butter with the dry ingredients is to just use your hands to work the butter into the flour and oats until there are no dry pockets of flour and/or large chunks of butter. Eventually, everything should sort of turn the color of brown sugar. You’re looking for a “crumbly” texture, but homogenous.
In an 8x8” baking dish, dump the berries. By this time, they’ve probably accumulated a fair amount of juice. Good. We want that. Evenly spread them out throughout the dish. Then, take the crumble and thoughtfully sprinkle it over the top. This is a moment to be selfish. Consider yourself being the recipient of each section of the crumble. Would you be happy with the amount of crumble you’d be getting if someone else was doing the dishing up? Great.
Slide this sucker in the oven and bake for… shoot. I forget how long I baked it. I wanna say it was like 25 minutes? But if it’s been 25 minutes and that doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t. What you’re looking for is bubbly berries and a golden brown crumble.
At that point, take it out of the oven and let it set for 10 minutes, if you can wait that long. Like a lasagna, it really does help to let everything set up, but guess what? It’ll still be great if you dive in right away.
Serve with Häagen-Dazs vanilla bean ice cream or literally don’t make it at all.
Plus a little more…
Still talking about berries.
August by Mary Oliver
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among
the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.
Dear Home Ec,
Welcome to our brand new section: Dear Home Ec!
Inadvertently invented by my friend, Laura, this will be a place for me to answer more directed questions from you all. And by you all, I mean, mostly my cousin Tracy who asks me for recommendations on everything from bedsheets to soup recipes. And you know what? I do have a preferred bedsheet and a very long list of soup recipes.
I will be answering my first Dear Home Ec question starting next week, but in the meantime (and moving forward), please feel free to send me any and all questions or topics to cover by simply replying this email. Product recs, recipe requests, financial advice (lol), dating advice (double lol)… I’m down to give you my thoughts on literally anything. Honestly, I’m down to give you my thoughts on literally anything whether you’ve asked me or not, so this feels like a good use of that energy.
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