Finding Time for Joy

I’ve been running at a non-stop pace since I got back from San Francisco. Launching a new business is a lot of work. I’m going to have a very busy September (more on that soon) so I need to rest while I can.

But I know myself – I do not enjoy stopping for rest, especially when I am excited about something. For this business my goal is to take some time to rest, to choose rest, and to choose a slower pace.

Friday was going to be my first day off in over a month.

I told my friend Larysa of my plan to take a rest day. She is like me, incapable of stopping until your body makes you stop. She said I wouldn’t make it to 10am without working.

I didn’t make to 9am.

I told myself I needed to get work done: I had to get a wholesale grocery order in (it could have waited until Monday, but I forgot last week). Then I had to get photos of the granola for the new Shopify website (the images now are fine, and this photo shoot turned out horribly. I wasn’t into it, and they look like they were scanned by a court clerk attaching them as exhibits in Donald Trump’s many trials). I had to research fridges for the market.

Nothing went to plan. I was frustrated. It turns out I didn’t have to do any of this on Friday. It all could have waited.

What I had to do was stop.

By Friday afternoon I accepted that I needed to rest. I did not stop when Larysa texted me in all caps “STOP IT.” But I did when she said “I AM MAD AT YOU” after checking if I was still working several hours later. I can’t have the President of the Responsible Adults Friendship Club mad at me – so, I stopped.

I went for a run, my first run since hurting my IT band two months ago. It was great. I was so in the moment I didn’t realize Robin and/or Sam of KWFamous driving past me shouting “GO GRANOLA DADDY GO!”

## My original plan for the day was to cook for joy.

As the summer vacation period winds down, I think it’s important to take a moment to recognize where doing things for joy and rest is going to fit into your routine.

I clearly don’t celebrate Summer vacation, so consider me a test case for how you will feel in the middle of Fall – and Granola Daddy is tired.

A lot of the cooking I’ve done this year is for work. Recipe development and testing, filming and photography, now commercial scale baking. I imagine it’s what it can feel like if you’re the primary cook for a family – often it’s fun, but sometimes it can feel like a relentless onslaught of obligation. But as Denis Morton of Peloton likes to remind me, “I don’t have to, I get to.”

I do truly love cooking and I love good food.

To break the pattern of how I felt about cooking I removed the obligation. I would cook for joy. I wasn’t developing a recipe, I wasn’t going to take photos, and I was only cooking for me. I was going to make some bougie-ass food for myself.

Though the end result is a documented recipe with beautiful photos that I shared with friends, how I got there was different.

I put on some podcasts – I really enjoy KCRW’s Good Food (come for the bread recipes, stay for the lesbian bar reviews) – and cooked. I had planned to make fruit pies. I haven’t made any yet this year. I also have not made a single tomato sandwich.

But I forgot to buy fruit while I was busy thinking about photo shoots I didn’t need to do, so there were no pies.

Instead I looked at all the beautiful produce from my CSA that I have been ignoring because I’ve been too busy.

I decided to make puff pastry from scratch with the good butter. Rough puff pastry is easy, and one day I will convince you to try it. You basically grate frozen butter with a cheese grater into flour, sugar, and salt. Add some water. Wait. Cut it into 4, stack it, smush it, roll it. And you’ve got puff pastry. It’s no harder than making scones, and certainly easier than pie crust. It’s one of the tastiest things you can make as a home cook, and a recipe where doing it yourself (with the good butter) transports you to Parisian cafe the way Pillsbury cannot.

(I have never been to Paris except via puff pastry induced hallucinations.)

What I really wanted to make was a shallot Tarte Tatin: a layer of salted caramel; soft shallots; creamy garlic; puff pastry that absorbs all the flavours while remaining its own distinct deliciousness. I got some absolutely stunning torpedo shallots in my Lucky Bug CSA and thought this would be a beautiful, delicious use for them. I’m sure there is a recipe online for a shallot Tarte Tatin, but I didn’t feel like following anyone else’s rules.

I sliced my shallots in half, lengthwise. I made a small amount of caramel, added a good amount of butter, thyme, salt, and pepper. I layered in the shallots in a star pattern, with whole cloves of garlic in between, and then topped it with my puff pastry. I baked it at 350°F for around 45 minutes.

It is perhaps one of the best things I’ve made all year. You can use the recipe below, or follow your heart like I did.

*The shallots cook down into a soft, creamy texture. The garlic melts in your mouth. Both take well to the sweetness, and get sweet themselves with the longer cooking time. This probably could have been in 5 minutes more but I was hungry.*

*While it bakes the caramel will bubble up the sides, creating a salty sweet edge that is the best bite of food you’ll have all year.*

While listening to Good Food, they had guests on to talk about the produce graveyard we all have in our fridges – and one recommendation was to make gazpacho. Following my heart and their advice, I took everything I’ve neglected from the last week or two in my CSA and threw it into the blender: a cucumber, two green peppers, 3 small carrots, some celery, some garlic, a head of fennel and its fronds, a bunch of parsley, and some shishito peppers I got at Legacy Greens.

I added some good olive oil, a bit of water, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Blended until smooth. Serve topped with good olive oil. I’m not writing this as a recipe because you should use what’s in your fridge. This just happens to be what is was in my fridge. Don’t go to the store for this nonsense. If you want to go to the store for gazpacho, make this one from NYT Cooking (my friend Paul roasts the garlic and onion, and grills the pepper, when making this).

I had some leftover puff pastry, so I made some quick fruit tarts. I cut some slices of plums that I had great intentions for at the store, before I got busy. I threw on some cinnamon, a pinch of salt, orange zest, and a teaspoon of sugar.

I froze these on Friday, and baked right from the freezer on Saturday for date night, served still warm from the oven. They were delightful.

I also made him pizza – the first time I used my pizza oven this entire year. That was a great moment of joy.

The moral of the story is that I was busy this year.

Too busy even for pizza.

Yet pizza is my one true love.

It’s easy to feel busy. To just keep on doing the next thing, without stopping, without rest, without joy. I’m sure you have a to-do list you’re ignoring right now to read this very email.

My goal for the rest of this year is to find some balance. To Goldilocks my busy-ness, my relationships, my fitness: not too much, not too little. Just right.

Whatever outlet you have to find joy, please make time for it. Remember to stop and be present – whether your one true love is pizza or a person. Don’t lose an entire year of pizza making because life is busy.

Your to-do list can wait.

And you’ll probably finish it faster, with less angst, once you’ve had some rest.

# Shallot Tarte Tatin

Ingredients

4 large torpedo shallots (8 if using grocery store shallots), ends cut off, dry skin peeled off, and sliced in half lengthwise
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp thyme
1 tsp salt
Pepper to taste
1lb of puff pastry

Method

Heat an oven-safe 10” or 12” pan, such as a well-seasoned carbon steel or cast iron, on the stove on medium heat. Add the sugar and water. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Heat until the sugar turns into a deep amber colour, around 10–12 minutes. Try not to stir as the sugar may crystallize.

Once the sugar is caramelized, add in the butter. Stir to evenly incorporate. Add a pinch of salt, a generous amount of black pepper, and 1 tsp of dried thyme (1 tbsp fresh).

Add the shallots, cut side down. Add whole cloves of garlic around the shallots.

Cut the puff pastry to a circle 1” larger than the size of your pan, using a dinner plate as a template. Place on top of the shallots, tucking in the sides to create a crust that can be gloriously coated in salted caramel.

Poke a bunch of holes in the top with a fork to allow steam to escape so the pastry doesn’t puff up and away from the shallots. (If it does puff in the oven, poke it with a paring knife to release the steam).

Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown.

Remove from the oven Once the caramel bubbles stop bubbling, but before it has cooled – around 5 minutes – place a plate on top of the pastry and flip (use oven mitts!). If you flip too early the caramel will pool, too late and the caramel will have begun hardening onto the pan and hold onto your shallots.

If the caramel pours out, you can’t really fix that. It’s happened to me (that’s what went wrong with my Melissa Clark upside down peach cobbler). It will still taste good. If the caramel hardens you have two options.

If nothing will release from the pan, gently warm the pan on the stovetop to melt the caramel.
More likely, some shallots will stick to the pan. Remove these with a fork and place them onto the tart.

Serve while warm or eat cold from the fridge in the middle of the night in your snacking cape. This is so delicious I had to take all of the leftovers to friends because I would take my teeth out in the middle of the night to eat the rest of it.