The last plums of the season, episode II

We don't need to be prodded too much to celebrate something around here, so I was happy to oblige when Brad gave himself the best kind of belated birthday present this morning by busting out another huge PR at Great Meadow (where Dylan ended his illustrious high school cross country career by running his own PR). When I texted Brad's time to Dylan, Dylan responded "Holy shit! What a race." Well said, college boy.

Every celebration needs a dessert. Luckily, I just happened to have picked up some Italian prune plums at the City Market before Brad ran. Two years ago, I wrote about Marrian Burros's famous Plum Torte (the most requested recipe in the history of the New York Times), which I make several times every year during the short season for Italian prune plums. Recently, I was surprised to discover that Burros created a sequel to the Plum Torte, in the form of a Plum Crumble, the recipe for which was published 22 years to the day after the Plum Torte article. The ingredients are actually very similar, except for the notable addition of ginger, in two forms, to the Plum Crumble. But the results are very different. Where the Plum Torte is light and airy, the Plum Crumble has a hard shell, like a crispy cookie, with a gingery plum jam beneath.

So, does a sequel ever live up to the original? Not too often. The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, maybe a few others, but not many. Usually, you end up with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. But in this case, the Plum Crumble is just as fabulous as the Plum Torte. I am happy to add this to my Italian plum repertoire, though, like the Plum Torte, it should also work well with other kinds of fruit.

Plums in situ

Topping

The finished product, while it lasted

Italian Plum Crumble

Adapted from Marrion Burros via The New York Times

Plums
2 tablespoons (25 grams) brown sugar
2 tablespoons (15 grams) finely chopped candied (crystallized) ginger 
1½ tablespoons (11 grams) all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger 
12 Italian prune plums, cut in half along the crease and pitted 

Topping
1 cup (120 grams) all-purpose flour
¾ cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder 
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt 
1 egg (~57 grams in the shell), well beaten 
½ cup (1 stick/113 grams) unsalted butter

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven, and heat to 375 degrees. Rub the end of the stick of butter gently around the bottom and sides of a 9- or 9½-inch deep dish pie plate to grease it ever so lightly. Melt the rest of the butter, and set aside.
    2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, candied ginger, 1½ tablespoons flour, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, and ground ginger. Add the plums and mix well. Arrange the plums skin side up in the pie plate. Sprinkle whatever is left in the bowl evenly around the plums (see first photo above). 
    3. In the now-empty bowl, whisk together the 1 cup flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the beaten egg with a fork. Use your hands to mix everything together thoroughly till it looks like large bread crumbs (see the second photo above). Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the plums.
    4. Spoon or drizzle the melted butter evenly over the crumb mixture. Bake until the top is well browned and the plums yield easily when pricked with a toothpick, about 30 minutes. Remove to a wire rack.
    5. Serve warm or at room temperature or refrigerate for up to 2 days. If reheating, bring to room temperature, then warm briefly at 300 degrees. Serves 6 to 8 (normal people). 

My fig crop: spelt testing, episode II

I had a record "crop" of figs off one of my trees this year, but it was less than 20 figs in total, and the other tree still hasn't produced anything. The good news is that the figs, though small, are really tasty, much sweeter and more flavorful than the fresh California figs I bought at Trader Joe's this morning. I'm hoping some timely, strategic pruning will up my haul significantly next year. I got some advice Uncle Bob passed along from his arborist, and Mom and I both listened carefully to what Daniel had to say yesterday at the City Market (he said he's been pulling them by the quart off his trees for weeks; I'm so jealous).

A big chunk of my fig "crop"

 

Before we went to the City Market, Mom met me on the Downtown Mall, where I was having breakfast with quite a few of my running buddies (many of whom had two-syllable names: Rol●lin, Bri●an, Ker●ry, Char●lie; so there). I knew we were in trouble when I saw Mom strolling down the Mall in her "FSU Mom" t-shirt. We hadn't coordinated, but I was wearing my "FSU Dad" t-shirt and had already taken a raft of shit from Tom S. about it. Sure enough, when he saw both of us sitting together in our matching t-shirts, he couldn't help but treat us through the remainder of breakfast to his rendition of the FSU tomahawk chop and war chant. Tom had the war chant completely wrong, which takes some doing, but of course he didn't let that stop him.

My meager fig crop obviously wasn't enough to make the fig bars below, but they did give me the idea. As it turns out, I think the bars will be better with a stronger-flavored, and more vividly-colored, type of fruit preserves, like cherry or apricot, which I've noted in the recipe below. Despite the subtitle of this episode, you can make both recipes with regular flour and they'll come out fine, so don't pass just because of that. And yes, I know this is already banana bread #4, but this is the last one, I swear. I wouldn't have written it up, but I like how simple it is. No spices, just lots of banana flavor and a good texture. I'm probably going with this one more often than not from now on.

The Last Banana Bread

Adapted from Angela Hartnett via The Daily Mail

Time: 1:05 to when the bread is removed from the pan

You can grind the nuts coarsely in a food processor (a few pulses), or with a mortar and pestle, or you can put them in a plastic bag and whack them a bit with the bottom of a heavy skillet or a meat pounder. You can use all-purpose flour or a combination of all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour instead of spelt flour.

Dry ingredients
130 grams whole grain spelt flour; or 75 whole grain spelt flour + 55 grams white spelt flour (see note)
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
70 grams ground pecans or walnuts (see note)

Wet ingredients
227 grams peeled banana, from 2 medium, ripe bananas
130 grams (⅔ cup) light brown sugar
2 eggs
25 grams (~2 tablespoons) butter, melted

    1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a one-pound (8½-by-4½-inch) loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
    2. In a small bowl, whisk together the spelt flours, salt, baking soda, and ground walnuts.
    3. In a large bowl, mash the bananas well. You should have 1 cup mashed banana. Whisk in the sugar and eggs until well blended. Dump in the dry ingredients and stir just until nearly blended. Stir in the melted butter, then scrape the wet batter into the prepared loaf pan.
    4. Bake until the bread is golden brown and firm to the touch, about 40 minutes. An instant-read thermometer should  register around 190°F when the bread is baked through. The bread will not rise much because there is so little leavening.
    5. Let the bread cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Store at room temperature, wrapped in plastic, for several days.

Spelt and Oat Jam Bars

Adapted from Sprouted Kitchen

You can also make this with all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, or a mix of all-purpose and whole-wheat flour. The original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon cinnamon, which would be overpowering. I cut that in half and used 1½ teaspoons, and you still get a strong cinnamon flavor. If you’re not a big fan of cinnamon, I’d take it down to 1 teaspoon. I love figs, but the fig preserves were underwhelming. I think something with a stronger visual and flavor profile, like apricot or cherry preserves, would be better here.

Dry ingredients
155 grams (1¼ cups) whole grain spelt flour (see note)
175 grams (1¾ cups) rolled oats, divided
1 to 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon (see note)
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon fine sea salt

Wet ingredients
150 grams (¾ cup) brown sugar
113 grams (½ cup) applesauce
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract, optional

25 grams (2 tablespoons) butter, cut into ¼-inch cubes
225 grams (~⅔ cup) fig or other fruit preserves (see note)

    1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8-by-8-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
    2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
    3. In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, applesauce, egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract, if using.
    4. Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and stir to combine. Press two-thirds of the mixture into the pan. Spread the preserves evenly over the bottom layer.
    5. Stir the remaining 25 grams (¼ cup) of the oats into the remaining one-third of the batter. Add the butter pieces, and cut in with a fork or a pastry blender. Scatter pieces of the batter by the tablespoonful over the preserve layer.
    6. Bake until risen some and the top feels firm and maybe a bit crispy, about 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes 12 bars. 

The howling fantods, or, a parent's life

Orin's special conscious horror, besides heights and the early morning, is roaches. There'd been parts of metro Boston near the Bay he'd refused to go to, as a child. Roaches give him the howling fantods.

                    --From Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace

At the beginning of 2017, I vowed that this would be the year I checked off two items that have been on my bucket list for about 20 years: (1) running the whole Rivanna Trail around Charlottesville, and (2) reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. In the words of George W. Bush (or "the Shrub," as DFW called him), "Mission Accomplished." I tackled the Rivanna Trail in February, then took up Infinite Jest in June and finally finished it today.

The final kick in the pants to get on Infinite Jest was when Dylan started reading it after Andi's wedding, which is sort of funny. While he was in C'ville that week, I tried to get him to take an extra copy I have of Consider the Lobster, which is a great collection of DFW's "creative nonfiction" essays, including the one about the Shrub's run against John McCain in the Republican presidential primaries in 2000, but Dylan was having none of it (so many books stacked up already, so little time). Except Joan then told him what a great book Infinite Jest is, and Dylan was 300 pages in before you know it. Yeah, that's how it is when you're a parent. But as long as you get there in the end, that's what matters.

Anyway, Infinite Jest was well worth the time and effort, a real tour de force as they say. It was really interesting reading it 20 years on, finding bits of things that showed up later in his work. The "howling fantods," which became something of a Wallace catchphrase, appears a few more times in addition to the quote from page 45 above. The parable at the center of his famous 2005 Kenyon College commencement address (later reprinted as the book This Is Water) is right there on page 445 in nearly identical terms. And the Zen-like message underlying the address is also encapsulated later in the novel, in the thoughts of Don Gately lying in his hospital bed:

He wonders, sometimes, if that’s what Ferocious Francis and the rest want him to walk toward: Abiding again between heartbeats; tries to imagine what kind of impossible leap it would take to live that way all the time, by choice, straight: in the second, the Now, walled and contained between slow heartbeats.

Other bits struck me for different reasons: the reference to "fake news" on page 385, 20 years before Donald J. Trump (on his way to shoving the Shrub off the bottom rung of the bad presidents' ladder) came to prominence for something other than being The Donald; Lenz saying he had to "piss like a racehorse," just like De taught me to say in law school; and, best of all, the description of the A.F.R.s (and later John Wayne—the tennis prodigy, not the actor) as "com[ing] always in the twilight, implacably squeaking, and cannot be reasoned with or bargained with, feel no pity or remorse, or fear," which is almost exactly how Reese describes the Terminator to Sarah Connor in T1, which DFW was a big fan of.

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