{"id":1813,"date":"2004-10-03T18:18:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-03T18:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitemporaryblog.wordpress.com\/2004\/10\/03\/like-the-leaves"},"modified":"2015-09-24T03:54:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:54:38","slug":"like-the-leaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangette.net\/2004\/10\/like-the-leaves\/","title":{"rendered":"Like the leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have somewhat contradictory fears: I’m afraid of not getting enough sleep and, on the other hand, of sleeping too late. While it seems perfectly alright to bow out of an evening early, I\u2019m terrified of missing morning<\/strong>: the sweet slowness in my limbs, the ritual first meal of the day, the clanging and buzzing of the street as it begins to wake. In college I\u2019d sometimes sneak away to bed at 9 or 9:30, feeling smart and smug and sensible, as though I were putting an entire paycheck into savings rather than spending it. But I\u2019m softening with age: these days sleep comes closer to midnight, and morning isn\u2019t welcome until eight. I\u2019ve even been known to find ample reasons to stay up past bedtime and lie around the next day. I\u2019m so grown up.<\/p>\n

But this morning I\u2019m tired. I woke again to a fog that covered the city, and the trees outside my apartment are turning crimson, then amber, then brittle yellow<\/strong> against the gray air. Today I feel like the leaves. Soon I\u2019ll drag myself out for a long walk. Solvitur ambulando<\/em>, as the Romans used to say: the solution comes through walking.<\/p>\n

Last night brought chocolate cake and a new twist in the future of my kitchen. It came in the form of a Mason jar half-full of foamy sourdough starter<\/strong>, complete with a lid that reads, \u201cFeeeeeed me!\u201d Margot<\/a>, who is constantly crafting and creating various things from plaster and wax and latex and wood glue and wheat and loads of butter, has given me a bit of her sourdough starter. She also presented me with a collection of recipes from the hilariously hokey Sourdough Jack\u2019s Cookery<\/em><\/a>, which comes with photos of Jack himself in a suede vest and cowboy hat, gazing lovingly at his sourdough sponge.<\/p>\n

Seven of us sat around the big round table for a dinner of grilled salmon and offerings from the family garden: purple potatoes dug only minutes before boiling, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers tossed with feta and vinaigrette, and stubby ears of yellow corn. We then wreaked havoc on a still-warm sourdough chocolate cake, complete with its moat of improvised (and remarkably tasty) chocolate glaze made from a giant Hershey\u2019s Kiss melted with milk and butter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And to cap off the evening, we bundled up against the fall night\u2014I, in Margot\u2019s fleece jacket, proved that red and purple do<\/em> go together\u2014and went to a cyclocross<\/a> race to watch men in tight outfits hop over little hurdles with their bikes on their shoulders. Other highlights of the evening included Nicho\u2019s dog Index, with intelligent eyes and an excellent name; Kate\u2019s corduroy pants with stars on the seat; and my feigned fear of Kate’s fabulously muscular legs, ready to spring like coiled pythons<\/strong> from the aforementioned corduroy pants.<\/p>\n

I came home, marveled at the jar of sourdough starter for a moment or two, and then, possessed by the sort of sweet-and-sour melancholia that comes only after midnight, I stayed up until 2am, writing. Two years ago, when I last spent summer at home in Oklahoma, my father\u2014who I\u2019ve called \u201cBurg<\/strong>\u201d for as long as I can remember\u2014and I talked often of baking bread together. I like to think he was a sourdough starter kind of guy, maybe Sourdough Jack in a photographer\u2019s vest and baseball cap<\/strong>. But we didn\u2019t know then that the summer would be his last, and we let ourselves be distracted by peaches, tomatoes, pesto, and candy-sweet white corn.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday, September 26, marked two years since the day Burg was diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer of the kidney. It had already metastasized to his spinal column and his bony pelvis, femurs, skull, and tibia. It took him down fast, viciously. October 7, 2002 was the last day he walked, taking tentative steps with my brothers down the hospital hallway. He died only two months later, on December 7.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve stayed up too late, and this morning I’m tired.
But the solution comes through walking, I tell myself, and so I go.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>
<\/strong>
Margot\u2019s Sourdough Chocolate Cake
<\/strong>Adapted from Sourdough Jack\u2019s Cookery
<\/em>
1 cup thick sourdough starter
1 cup sugar
\u00bd cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk (evaporated preferred, but even regular old skim works fine), at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
\u00bd tsp salt
1 \u00bd tsp baking soda
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour<\/p>\n

Leave a cup of starter out overnight.<\/p>\n

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n

Cream sugar and butter until fluffy, then beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in starter, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and melted chocolate. Beat with electric mixer (or recruit a strong man with a whisk, such as Margot\u2019s boyfriend Todd) for two minutes. Blend salt and soda together and sprinkle over batter. Fold in gently. Fold in flour until batter is smooth. Pour into buttered and floured pan (either a standard Bundt pan or an 8-inch round pan, or experiment).<\/p>\n

Bake until cake springs back when pressed lightly and a cake tester comes out clean, 35-60 minutes, depending on the type of pan you use. Cool and frost, or sprinkle with powdered sugar. Then eat, as with other things, aggressively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have somewhat contradictory fears: I’m afraid of not getting enough sleep and, on the other hand, of sleeping too late. While it seems perfectly alright to bow out of an evening early, I\u2019m terrified of missing morning: the sweet slowness in my limbs, the ritual first meal of the day, the clanging and buzzing of the street as it begins to wake. In college I\u2019d sometimes sneak away to bed at 9 or 9:30, feeling smart and smug and sensible, as though I were putting an entire paycheck into savings rather than spending it. But I\u2019m softening with age: these days sleep comes closer to midnight, and morning isn\u2019t welcome until eight. I\u2019ve even been known to find ample…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLike the leaves | Orangette<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/orangette.net\/2004\/10\/like-the-leaves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Like the leaves | Orangette\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have somewhat contradictory fears: I’m afraid of not getting enough sleep and, on the other hand, of sleeping too late. While it seems perfectly alright to bow out of an evening early, I\u2019m terrified of missing morning: the sweet slowness in my limbs, the ritual first meal of the day, the clanging and buzzing of the street as it begins to wake. In college I\u2019d sometimes sneak away to bed at 9 or 9:30, feeling smart and smug and sensible, as though I were putting an entire paycheck into savings rather than spending it. But I\u2019m softening with age: these days sleep comes closer to midnight, and morning isn\u2019t welcome until eight. 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