Sleepless Nights -- Macarons

My first experience with macarons was a cell-phone charm.

This one, actually, from Q-Pot, Japanese purveyor of exquisitely crafted food as jewelry (the top image). I think all their cell-phone charms are gorgeous, but I found something particularly captivating about macarons with jewels stuck in buttercream. At 3,780 Yen, this is a $40 cell-phone charm.

I saw it, wanted it, and immediately went to Strapya World and bought the $10 knock-off (the image beneath) Not as beautifully crafted, perhaps, but something I could afford.

I’d been seeing macarons (not the coconut-meringue cookies called “macaroons,” but these brightly colored confections) pop up here and there in chicey-poo-poo magazines dedicated to travel and cooking. The articles inevitably waxed poetic about fanciful flavor combinations (wasabi-grapefruit! White truffle-hazelnut!) and a divinely chewy/crunchy texture, but I didn’t really pay them much attention other to think that macarons were another very pretty example of Pastries I Can’t Eat.

Then I found out that they are gluten-free.

Macarons are appealing on several levels. They are beautiful. They come in bright colors and tantalizing, exotic flavors. They are small, delighting the beholder in the same way that doll furniture, sushi rolls, and petit fours delight. They cannot be bought at Wal-Mart or your local grocery; there is a certain amount of exclusivity (dare I say snob appeal?) to finding a baker that actually makes them. You can’t have them everyday because it’s difficult to find them, so who would begrudge you a few calories when you can get them? They are like a tiny wrapped gift, small and lightweight. Macarons make the perfect Treat.

So... Why aren’t we all out there making them?

Because according to the authors of the chicey-poo-poo articles, that these little cookies are the Divas of the Pastry World. They are fiendishly finicky, easily upset by humidity and the temperature of the kitchen. They can be ruined if you overbeat them by one stroke. Only the truly experienced pastry chef should even dare attempt them, and even then they fail sometimes, and—

Oh, hooey. I mean, seriously? It’s a sandwich cookie. It has four ingredients. What’s with all the drama?

I have done a lot of searching. I have baked a lot of macarons. I can tell you definitively that macarons are not a Big Deal... And they are a Big Deal. It depends on the kind of person you are.

When I see an ingredient list this simple, I know that the process used to combine them has got to be important. This is the case with macarons. You need to understand how each of the ingredients is working in the recipe in order to make the best of the recipe. (I’m sure I just lost some of you right there. That’s okay; not everyone gets excited about this stuff. But you should definitely keep looking at the pictures!)

For some, this kind of recipe presents an interesting challenge, and they just want to dive in and see what happens — like Bakerella at SugarComa this past January. Then there are some people who create macarons with a kind of Buddha-like simplicity. That would describe Tartlette. She has several recipes on her blog for macarons, and none of them involve dire warnings, tears, or drama. Look:

Not only does she make fabulous macarons, but she takes beautiful pictures of them: on the left, Powdered Strawberry and Vanilla-Bean Macarons; on the right, Black Tie Macarons

I studied the macarons on her site and the PDF copy of her article Demystifying Macarons from Dessert Magazine. I cross referenced it against other web sources. I gathered my materials, wrote up my instructions, and made my first batch of macarons.

I get it now. From the first shattering bite, I was hooked.

You want to try your hand at macarons? Start here. Her directions are what you need to know. I cannot improve upon these instructions, but I would like to add a few notes from someone who has not had pastry training and who can see where the home baker might get a little nervous:

As I said, macarons are a process. Whatever recipe you choose, you will want to read carefully beforehand, several times, to understand what you’re going to do and when. Measure everything carefully, preferably with a scale, but failing that, use the right measuring techniques for dry ingredients. Get your stuff in order on the countertop – parchment lined pans, spatulas, pastry bags. You do not want to be rooting around in the cupboards in the middle of this.

Believe it or not, baking powder was an invention. Before that, people used baking soda, and before that they either used yeast or whipped egg whites to leaven baked goods. In this day of boxed mixes, we don’t mess much with whipping egg whites, so when a recipe says “soft foam” or “medium stiff meringue,” confusion or uncertainty is understandable. If you’ve never whipped egg whites in your life, you may want to practice with a few just too see what “foamy,” “soft peaks,” “glossy peaks,” and “broken” look like. It isn’t hard, but if you’ve never seen it before it can be rather daunting.

Egg whites smell funny. Not exactly bad, just... not good. And leaving them out in your kitchen for a day or two doesn’t improve them any. This step kind of bothered me, and I couldn’t tell if I smelled an egg smell or the beginning of something sinister. Assuming your kitchen temperature isn’t ninety degrees, just go with it. Egg whites smell funny.

The number of strokes is important. Lock up the cat and send the kids outside, because you need to concentrate and count. If you have never folded egg whites into something before, you will definitely want to practice on a pancake or muffin batter. When I began my “macaronage,” my internal dialogue went something like:

5 strokes: “She’s nuts. This will never work.”
10 strokes: “What have I gotten myself into?”
15 strokes: “Well, at least it will make a good story.”
20 strokes: “You know... This might actually work.”

I found 20 strokes a good place to stop and add any add-ins (cocoa powder, food coloring, etc.). This is also where I began to be much more careful and thorough, turning and scraping the bowl.

But if you should use 51 strokes, the macarons will not be ruined! The point is, pay attention. Watch the batter, not the television.

Tartelette specifically states that powdered food coloring is better than the liquid food coloring we all have in our pantries, because the powdered coloring does not add moisture to the meringue. This makes sense; if the egg whites are left lingering on the countertop for 24 hours, why would you want to add liquid back in?

Naturally, I had to try the liquid food coloring. I'm like that.

I divided the batter at 20 strokes and adding 5 drops liquid food coloring with 1 teaspoon powdered egg whites to each half of the batter. I also tried another divided batch with 3 drops liquid food coloring and no egg white.

Yes, it made a difference. Instead of the impressive shatter/chewy combination, the texture was much more subdued. Actually, I never felt like I got any of the batches baked all the way through; I baked them for the full 12 minutes and then a bit longer until they started to brown. They stuck to the parchment. They weren’t bad, they just weren’t that magical transcendent texture that all the articles raved about. They went from, “This is amazing!” to “Well, these are pretty tasty.”

Can you use liquid food coloring? Yes. But you will never achieve the intense colors you can achieve with powdered coloring and the texture will suffer. I personally will not be using the liquid drops again, and I think for your first batch, you shouldn’t either. If you take the time to make macarons, then you should have them as they should be and experiment later! (That is to say, I haven’t tried gel food coloring yet, and I certainly will...)

I am a terrible judge of size, so I drew 1 1/4 inch circles on the undersides of the parchment paper and used them as a template. It wasn’t until I had actually loaded a plastic bag full of batter and cut off 1/4 inch at the corner that I realized I had no clue how to use a pastry bag. None. But with the pre-drawn circles as a guideline and a few macarons as practice, I did just fine.

After the first batch, I got the Ateco tips Tartelette mentioned in her article; unfortunately, having no clue about pastry bags, I ordered the wrong size coupler. That was okay – the guys at ultimatebaker.com set me straight. As a matter of fact, he said “Just promise to order from us again!” and dropped the right sized coupler in the mail, for free. (Unfortunately, I’m not really sure what size he dropped in the mail... If you’re as pastry-bag-challenged as I am, call and ask. They’re nice.)

 

Using real pastry tips was quite exciting. I spent more time trying to keep macaron batter in the bag than trying to pipe it out. But like whipping and folding egg whites, it takes practice and patience. As you can see, I didn’t manage too badly.

Three of the four macaron ingredients—confectioner’s sugar, egg whites, and plain sugar—are also the same ingredients in royal icing. Royal icing is the mortar of the pastry world, used to make a particularly hard, shiny icing for cookies or to glue the pieces of a gingerbread house together. You should not leave the mixing bowl in the sink and wait to do cleanup, or you will have to chisel dried macaron batter off your utensils. If the batter should dry, running hot water in the bowl and letting everything soak will get everything unglued... eventually.

My favorite combination so far is chocolate mint. Using the recipe outlined in Demystifying Macarons, I came up with:

3 egg whites
30 g sugar
200 g powdered sugar
110 g almond flour
and after 20 strokes, 2 TB of natural cocoa powder

And for the filling, a basic ganache:
1/4 c heavy cream
3.5 oz dark chocolate (70% cacao), chopped
3-5 drops peppermint oil (which is not the same as extract)

I used 5 drops of peppermint oil. MP informed me that the peppermint level of the macarons about blew the top of his head off. I like things minty, but you need to know your audience.

You can never make too many macarons; they freeze great. I layer them, unfilled, with parchment paper and put in a few of those “DO NOT EAT” desiccant pillow-paks I save from vitamin jars, and let them thaw on the counter for 15 minutes to a half hour before eating. They’re good plain, with jam, with ganache, with ice cream... Sometimes, I just lie awake at night thinking of what to put in macarons...

There are worse ways to spend sleepless nights.

Wild Strawberries

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

When I first heard this Zen tale, I was quite young. Nevertheless, I remember thinking, “This is a man with screwed-up priorities. He’s got a tiger on his butt, he’s about to fall off a cliff, and even the mice won’t give him a break. Who CARES about the damn strawberries? Clearly Zen monks have problems with ADD.”

And there the matter rested for twenty years.

There’s a phrase from James Clavell’s novel, Shōgun that has stayed with me: if you want to keep something private you have to “whisper it down a well at noon.” There are many people who blog as if they were whispering down a well, but the Internet is no well, as countless surprised Facebook users can testify. Anonymity is also no guarantee of privacy; the lights always come on.

There are no grand lead-ins, there are no excuses. Life is Life—it is Messy and Ungainly, and when it’s not Boring it’s Exciting in ways that make you yearn for Boring. Things happening in my life of late are deeply personal and bring to mind disturbing situations and questions. I’m hardly the first to face these events or questions, and while it would give me great comfort to write about them, it would give me no comfort at all to imagine anyone even remotely connected with these events finding out my thoughts by reading them in this forum. It is both self-centered and foolish to post certain topics on the Internet and pretend that no one will know it was you. Besides, I have never particularly enjoyed art as an excuse for public psychotherapy. That’s why I gave up listening to the radio in the late 90s (Quit whining, suck it up, move on).

One thing I will say: even as Life is mess and dirty and sometimes makes you angry or sad, it also offers up many other things, some of them quite wonderful—i.e., chocolate-mint macarons.

All around me different people have sung the praises of these confectionary gems. Distinct from the humble American macaroon, these meringue-based treats are decidedly European and undeniably chic. They come in flavors like lavender lemon, raspberry mascarpone, even red bean and green tea.

They are also reputed to be temperamental, fiendishly tricky, and almost impossible for the home baker to master.

They’re also gluten-free.

I made these. They were awesome. I want to tell you all about them. Because although they may not look it from the picture, these macarons tasted of wild strawberries.

We will always face the twin tigers of the Past and the Future. The yin-yang of Good and Evil will always threaten to gnaw away our hold on an intellectualized Reality. The only thing we have, the only thing that is certain, is Right Now. Taste it.

It doesn’t matter is that moment is a hug or a drawn out, tiresome complaint; walking into a hospital room or biting into a macaron—be present to the moment you are in, because it is the only thing that is real.

Best Gluten-Free Brownie Recipe Ever!

(For those of you who just want the brownies NOW, click here for the recipe. For those of you who enjoy thrilling tales filled with chocolate adventure, read on!)

Yesterday I had one of those “Why the hell is there no chocolate in this house?” moments.

I was in the middle of looking up the nearest Godiva boutique/store locations when I noticed a promo for their Chocolate Chunk Brownies and I was SAVED because I remembered had brownies in the freezer!

Whew!

Years ago I was perfectly happy with boxed brownies. I was a Duncan-Hines kind of girl. But somewhere in there I wondered if maybe I could do it better. I found a from-scratch recipe that was divine — particularly because I could choose my own cocoa powder and control the sweetness. Life was Good.

Until 2003. The year I went gluten-free.

Those were the Dark Days, my fudgy friends. Dark days, indeed. Yes, there were some GF brownie mixes, but they cost six bucks and tasted like the bag they came in. I resolved to do better. I took my divine brownie recipe and I CONVERTED IT to a GF recipe.

ZOMG you can’t do that! The chemistry! It won’t work! Think of the children!

Um, yes, you can do this, so let’s talk about chemistry and how I created the Frankenbrownie.

The easiest recipes to convert from wheat flour to gluten-free flours are those that don’t contain much flour in the first place. With only ½ cup of flour, this recipe fit nicely. Because GF flours have a lower protein content than all-purpose wheat flour, I knew I needed to add xanthan gum or guar gum as a thickener — but not much. Because of the lower protein content, I also knew I should treat the GF flour like cake flour. That means for every 1 cup of all-purpose wheat flour, I would use 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of GF flour.

Some people get nervous about GF baking when they see that so many GF recipes call for blending your own flours or contain small amounts of different flours. “You mean I gotta buy three different flours?” Well, no, you don’t gotta, but it can really make a difference in the final product. HOWEVER, because there’s not that much flour in this recipe, there’s a lot of flexibility in which GF flour you use. Eggs and butter provide most of the structure. (Oh yeah, say it with me now: “Eggs and butter provide most of the structure.” Mmm...)

I have had success with the following flours in this recipe:

• A blend of white rice, potato, and tapioca starches (my preferred)
• Brown rice flour
• Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose GF baking flour (which is not my favorite, because it contains garbanzo bean flour which makes the brownie taste slightly beany, but it is very easily found in stores)

You can do this. You should do this. Yes, the mixes are better now, but they still cost six bucks. Wouldn’t you rather use your own recipe and control the quality of your ingredients? Aren’t you tired of always refusing baked goods because you don’t want to be poisoned? Doesn’t your allergy-challenged kid deserve a decent tasting treat?

Oh come on — don’t you miss licking a truly delicious brownie batter off the spoon?

These brownies might just save your life. Well no, probably not, but they are really tasty.

***

Rich Cocoa Brownies
This recipe was originally published in the Oct/Nov 1996 issue of Fine Cooking magazine. Alas, I cannot find the author’s name. This is a fudgy brownie recipe, as opposed to the cakey, frostable type. My notes are in italics.

Yields 16 brownies More like 9. We are not here for the nutritional value, people.

• 6 oz. (12 Tbs.) unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup natural or Dutch-process cocoa (I like Ghirardelli. Now is not a good time to be cheap.)
• 1 1/4 cups sugar ( I cut this down to ¾ cups because I like chocolate, not sugar.)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1tsp. vanilla extract (Gluten-free! Check the label!)
• 3 eggs
• 2 2/3 oz. (2/3 cup) cake or gluten-free flour, or 2 1/2 oz. (1/2 cup) of all-purpose wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum or guar gum (or if you don’t have any, leave it out and see if you like the texture.)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9 x 9-inch pan. In a 2-qt saucepan, melt the butter, allowing it to get quite hot . Take the pan from the heat and whisk in the cocoa. Let the mixture cool completely.	Look for steam or the first bubbles on the bottom. Cooling always baffled me, because...
Whisk the sugar, salt, and vanilla into the cooled cocoa mixture. Add all the eggs at once (NOW it needs to be cool or you'll scramble the eggs!) and whisk again to combine.	...there’s no reason why a little heat should bother any of these ingredients. BTW, before you add the eggs is a really good time to taste the batter and see if everything is going well.
With a rubber spatula, fold in flour until incorporated. Fold in the nuts. Spread the batter in the pan and bake until a toothpick comes out moist and gooey, but not wet, 18 to 20 min. Be careful not to over-bake the brownies or they’ll toughen. Allow them to cool completely before cutting.	I sift my flour and xanthan gum into the batter, then I fold. GF flour can have some funky particulates in it. The time is dependent on your oven and your own preferences. Yes, it really needs to be a piece of wood and not a metal cake tester because the crumbs won’t stick right on metal. In my oven, I need to go for 22 minutes. Remember heat carryover!

Inertia: Just Do It

So sometimes the hardest part is the beginning, the just doing it, because inertia is in fact a contagious disease.

The anticipatory thinking of a thing, the "I don't wanna" and the "I'll do it tomorrow" often takes longer than (and is worse than) the doing of the thing you're so studiously avoiding. To wit: this post. It will take me 20 minutes to write it, but I've spent two and a half months avoiding it.

It's been so long that even my pen has succumbed to inertia (yes, I'm old-fashioned. I can edit at the computer, but I can't write), and I had to rinse the dried ink out of the nib. We get like that, too. We think we're dried up, but we're not; it's just that our creative nibs are clogged with day-to-day crap.

Okay, that was a tortured metaphor. Cut me some slack, it's been a while.

August was a lost month. We went out of town and the garden dried up, succumbing to squash vine borers (much to the relief of MP) and the weather. August always makes me think of strange things, and this August was no exception. However, to protect both the guilty and the innocent, I won't go into detail. No, it's no good. Don't ask.

Okay, here's a hint: F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night is a terrible beach read. Remember that.

The thing about Just Doing is to bear in mind that it is not the result that matters, but the endeavor itself. At long last you're doing something. Doesn't matter what, or how much; it's more than you did before.

Fear can be a compelling reason why we don't do something. I hate calling contractors to do home improvement work. Hate it. What do I know about someone's skills at carpentry? Get cold sweats. But I can not deal with crappy dirt and diseased tomatoes next year, and I will not hump 4 cubic yards of compost one wheelbarrow at a time along one side of the house, out around the back deck, and across the back yard because some cheap nitwit didn't put a gate in the fence on that side of the house. No.

I have learned to divide things into smaller and smaller chunks, distilling tasks down to their essence. When faced with fear, the question is this: what is the smallest step I can take in this project without succumbing to mind-numbing fear? Look up names. Choose three. Call one for an appointment. Call another. Get estimates and compare.

It is excruciatingly slow. But it is moving forward. Sometimes when things are scary, you have to go that slow. Like Zeno's arrow, you have to fool the frightened part of yourself into thinking you are not moving at all, that everything is fine. You have to reward yourself for tiny acts of bravery. In this way you create a body of accomplishment from which to draw confidence.

There are many people in this world who are doing things I would love to be doing. It isn't that they are fundamentally more talented than I am, but they are braver. It is pointless to entertain thoughts of cowardice -- you work with what you get. So what's the smallest thing I can do right now, TODAY, that put's me closer to my goal?

Don't dwell. Don't let it become a Big Thing. Just do it -- and then eat a chocolate afterward. Chocolate makes everything less scary.

Junior Mints (1956)

The Wooster Schine Theater was a classic example of an art deco movie palace. The ticket booth was a smooth chrome curve extending from the wall, and a ramp lined with movie posters of features and attractions led up to the two sets of bronzed double doors. They opened into a lobby of sky-blue walls, burgundy velvet curtains, and gold starburst chandeliers. There was a long glass candy counter and a brass machine for popcorn. Off to the left, stairs led up to the balcony, while on the main level two aisles led down to a real stage, where occasionally there was live entertainment (my father remembers for his senior prom night that they had entertainment and movies until 2 or 3 am. I thought group fun on prom night to keep kids out of trouble was a modern thing).

When the curtains opened, the movie began. On Saturdays, for a quarter they ran trailers of what would be showing a few weeks out, a cartoon, a lesser picture (a B film or something shorter) and then the feature. My father remembers, “When you went to the movies, you spent your Saturday there. It would start at one and you wouldn’t get out until four or five in the afternoon.” Most of the time the movie was a quarter, but for some of the big releases the price was a dollar. Ben-Hur was one such film. He thought that was nothing short of robbery. I asked him if he paid the dollar. He says he doesn’t remember, but he knows he saw Ben-Hur.

The interior of the Wooster Theater in the 1930s. Note the organ next to the stage. More images here.

I wondered if he ever really thought about or noticed the theater itself. While he knew that it was “nice,” it never struck him as anything particularly special. “Really Mar, I was there for the movies.” The Wooster Theater had ushers – always men, never women – that wore burgundy jackets and carried little flashlights to help you find a seat. “Why no ladies?” I asked. “Don’t really know, but they were definitely always men, college age or a little older. How else are you gonna get a bunch of high school kids to quiet down?” To me, growing up as I did in an age of twelve screen megaplexes, the concept of sitting in a balcony to watch a movie sounded romantic and sophisticated. “They only opened the balcony when they had a guy [usher] to watch it. You couldn’t have twenty kids running around up there with nobody to watch them.” So much for sophistication.

My father was like his mother in that if it was a movie, he liked it. Some of the earliest films he can remember seeing at the Wooster Theater are The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and The Man from the Alamo (1953). His most vivid memories are of movies like White Christmas (1954), Bambi (1942, probably the ‘57 re-release) and Singing in the Rain (1952) -- big, colorful films with music and wide screen cinematography.

He remembers a lot of hype leading up to the premiere of Forbidden Planet (1956). Quaker Oats Puffed Wheat sponsored a national contest for kids to name the robot. But in searching for this contest, for the kid who won or runner-up robot names, I can only find a Quaker Oats promo to give away free tickets to see Forever, Darling and Forbidden Planet. What could my father be remembering? Or misremembering? I’m not sure I want to tell him that this memory he has is false; if memory is better than reality, what difference does it make after fifty years? What is absolutely true is that Robbie the Robot inspired Spielberg, Lucas, and my father with a lifetime love of sci-fi thrillers, and I am pleased to see that Robbie, like Trigger has his own IMDB page.

Talking to my father made me remember something from my own childhood. “Hey Dad – you know that story you told us, about that thing you did with the washers and the rubber band on the seats of the theater?” “Oh… That.” Yeah Dad, that. I couldn’t get him to confess how old he was when he did it (which means he was old enough to know better) but at some point he and his friends, utilizing the same principles as the motor of a rubber-band airplane, created a gizmo to make a sound like “stinkies” (his word). Apparently against the corduroy seats it sounded amazingly realistic. I’m not sure if they did this to embarrass unsuspecting others (probably) or purely for their own amusement (undoubtedly), but it has always reminded me that my father is not all that he seems.

Once my father started high school he began seeing movies with large groups of friends (for all I know this is when the “stinkies" gizmo was at its most humorous). “It was nothing for just my brother and I to start out and end up with a group of ten or twenty kids. We’d fill up an entire row of seats.” He watched Psycho (1960) with one such group. According to my father they were deathly silent during the film, right up until Vera Mills found Mrs. Bates. Apparently he was not the only one who let out a yelp.

It occurred to me that maybe he and his friends were the reason that they needed male ushers. Did he ever get into trouble? “Oh, we’d get a ‘If I hear one more thing, this row is out of here!’ Other kids got thrown out, but I never did. Besides, we were only noisy during the previews. We wanted to see the movie.” I suspect that my father was probably as rowdy as anybody else, but he’s probably telling the truth. Getting thrown out would have embarrassed him profoundly, so I’m sure he never crossed the line -- or more to the point, never got caught.

My father may not have been particular about the movies he saw, but he was very discriminating regarding his refreshment choices. Grandma usually gave my father and his younger brother 30 or 35 cents apiece, which left them with a nickel or dime for candy. My father didn’t buy candy in the theater, though – too expensive. Just next to the theater there was a candy store. “It was tiny, maybe the size of a small room. One wall was all glass jars filled with penny candy, but I didn’t care about that. The counter with the cash register was a glass case that had pre-packaged candy – Snickers bars and stuff like that.” My father bought a box of junior mints for a nickel.

Junior mints, introduced in 1949 by the Welch Company, makers of Milk Duds and Sugar Babies.

For as long as I can remember, chocolate mint is a flavor I associate with my father. In the summertime there was a stash of small peppermint patties in the freezer. Junior mints, however, were something I had only at Halloween.

“How come I only remember peppermint patties growing up? Did you ever get peppermint patties at the movies?”

“No, not usually. I preferred junior mints. They melt in your mouth better. They also came in a cardboard box, so you didn’t have to eat them all at once. Peppermint patties do not survive well in pockets.” Ever the chemist, he then explained that junior mints, depending on how they’re shipped and stored, will develop a grainy texture in hot weather. The hydrophilic nature of sugar and its properties of re-crystallization aside, peppermint patties just travel better. Once again we are reminded by our elders that candy was a whole lot better in their day.

Or maybe not. My first memory of junior mints comes from when I was five years old. I was in the hospital and had to stay overnight, alone for the first time. Just before my parents left, my father put a box of junior mints in the top drawer. He made sure I saw him do it. “There are junior mints right in there, Mar, so if you want a snack, go right ahead and have some.” I’m sure he did not know that each night they tied a net (they called it a “canopy,” but I was not fooled) over every crib so we couldn’t wander around in the middle of the night. Needless to say I couldn’t get to the junior mints, but I remembered that I had them – a talisman against loneliness, a gift from my father to me.

Details matter. It’s just not always the details that you’d expect.

First Valentine

This week the café is verily festooned with the symbols of Love. It’s a trifle garish, but I like Valentine’s Day. However, recognizing that the festivities this week might present both pleasure and peril in equal measure, I have provided a few links that might help get you over some of the rough spots:

For the geek in you, learn the basics at How to Love. If you have a someone in mind, then The Love Notes Workshop teaches you how to write to that special someone – and possibly a few other things, judging by some of the pictures. I guess I’d believe their romantic intentions a whole lot more if that woman weren’t at the top of the page clutching her bosoms and looking… eager. I concur with the advice, but I’d call the site NSFW. The Love Calculator is the most romantic use of Perl I’ve ever seen – find out the odds of success with your Snugglebunny based on your names.

However… If Love is not in the cards this week, do not despair. How to Get Over a Broken Heart and The 6 Stages of a Broken Heart offer some down to earth advice on acknowledging your feelings and moving on. And then re-read last week’s post and remember the Power of Cacao.

Of course, if you’re not in the Valentine’s Mood, then you probably don’t want to be here. If the roses and cute crap on the letterhead didn’t convince you to leave, then let me give you one last warning – this post will be sappy. It’s my blog and I’ll ooze if I want to.

DESPITE having some really bad Valentine’s Days and some really moronic boyfriends, I actually like Valentine’s Day. Anything focused on chocolate, or increasing the volume of chocolate available, or advocating the consumption of chocolate, is not a bad thing. But the reason I like Valentine’s Day is not so much because of the chocolate, but my Dad – my first Valentine.

I don’t remember when he started doing this (since he’s done it as long as I can remember, he must have started at the right time), but every year on Valentine’s Day my Dad left on the dining room table a card and a little something for my sisters and I to discover when we woke up. It wasn’t much – a box of cinnamon red hots, a little necklace or t-shirt with something cute on it – but it was just the coolest thing to me as a little girl that my Daddy did this.

It was the only time he said or wrote the words “I love you.”

When I got older and my Man du Jour was on his soapbox ranting that he “did not believe in Valentine’s Day” because it was an attempt of corporations to dictate his emotions (I wish they could have just admitted that they were either cheap or not really into me, but trying to justify themselves with intellectual twaddle just made the whole thing that much crappier), but at the same time swearing that he loved me, it was my father who actually wrote little poems and bad puns to let me know he was thinking of me.

My father is not a saint. I couldn’t have racked up that many therapy hours without some help (on the other hand, our relationship is some of my best material). Psychologists like to call my father’s reluctance to express his feelings “emotional detachment,” but I kind of prefer “emotionally unavailable.” Makes it sound like a 404 server error of the heart – and believe me, depression puts you Off Line.

As I get older and have become the ages my father was when I was young, I realize that he didn’t have any more of a clue about things then than I do now. None of us do. And as I step back in that writerly fashion and try to observe what shaped all the characters that are my family, I see that, if my father was emotionally detached, then his father was emotionally constipated. And I understand now just why my father was so emotionally detached, and how much of a gift of himself his Valentines really were.

But one Valentine’s Day, as my father handed me a card and a small box of Godiva chocolates, he turned to MP and said, “This is the last time I’m going to do this. It’s your responsibility now.” It was followed by a pause that clearly stated, “And I better not hear you screwed this up.”

MP replied, “Yes sir.”

I, however, freaked.

“You mean you’re not even gonna send me a card anyone? Ever?!?”

“No,” said my father, staring at me levelly over his glasses, “I meant the chocolates.”

As I reread this, it occurs to me how psychologists of a particular feminist slant could fault me for depending on men to fulfill my happiness. Perhaps I used to, but I can buy my own chocolates these days, thank you, and I've done it. It’s just nice to know that there’s someone out there who wants chocolates for you, too.

Chocolate Love

I think this pretty much says it all. It’s February. Around here, some people refer to the month as “Suckuary.” Actually, I’m rather fond of the month. For starters, I like snow, and I also like Valentine’s Day -- despite having some really, truly crappy Valentine’s Days.

But when you get right down to it, I like seeing pictures of chocolate plastered on everything, because there’s not a whole lot that chocolate can’t make a little better.

A few days ago I had my spinal guru crack my neck. I hate having that done. It scares the crap out of me, that explosion just under my brain, and it’s never nice putting your head in someone’s hands to have your neck potentially broken. But the real reason I think I hate having my neck cracked is the emotional release. I sob uncontrollably every single time, and I have no idea why. I’m not the only one who does this when having her neck cracked, but I nevertheless feel a profound sense of embarrassment.

The therapist and his assistant, however, have seen it all before. When I came out, snorting into a tissue, Toni (the assistant) just sort of looked up at me under her eyebrows.

“I guess he got it, huh? Are you crying from physical pain, or emotional pain?”

“Oh, emotional (sniff). Definitely.”

“Well, that’s good then,” she said matter of factly. “Would you like some chocolate?”

And it suddenly occurred to me that yes, I most definitely wanted some chocolate. Very much. It was an odd, Harry Potter sort of moment, receiving dark chocolate to alleviate my emotional trauma, but it was the perfect thing. Chocolate is like that.

Sometimes just looking at chocolate is soothing. In the midst of diagnosing some food allergies (yeah, I know; some days I’m surprised I can even walk) one of MP’s cooking magazines arrived in the mail. I opened it to a piece entitled “Chocolate Desserts on Demand,” and then… Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened or disturbed my universe until realized I’d been staring at a photo of flourless chocolate cake with chocolate glaze for ten minutes without blinking. I found that magazine again, and, even now, staring at that fudgy wedge of confection on a smooth white plate…

… Huh? So, um, yeah… It may be Suckuary and darn cold where you are, but there’s no reason to be miserable. Close your eyes. Have a small square of dark chocolate. If that’s not possible for one reason or another, then indulge in some chocolate “porn” and drool over these treats: a beautifully frosted cake, delectable bon-bons, or incredibly cute chocolate shoes. Check out the confectioners’ links under Café Tor’s “You might also like…” selection for some amazing chocolate possibilities.

February is only 28 days -- enjoy it while it's here.