Pandemic Baking with Rae

I am not much of a baker. That said, I am going to share a few things I’ve made since the pandemic. This is my second try at focaccia. The first time it did not rise. I went around asking everyone what could have gone wrong and my friend Gwen (thank you Gwen!) said you didn’t let the salt touch the yeast did you? Well, of course I did. This was my second try. And to be perfectly honest I am only doing this so I can make art bread . This is great with soup. The first batch did not go to waste. We had company and we decided it was veggie pizza and had a little lemon olive oil to dip it in. I did use a New York Times focaccia recipe but you can find one online. This will be a good Winter thing to do. Nothing like bread baking in Winter.

Sour Cream Rhubarb Pie, now that’s Summer. And I have rhubarb and the plants were my Mom’s. This recipe comes from The Joy of Rhubarb cookbook. And you can find the recipe here.

These are Jane’s brownies. These are the best brownies ever. My guess is that Jane got this recipe from an old 50s cookbook. They are the brownies of long ago, full of butter and chocolate. The best part is that the texture is right. More chewy than cake-like. And the recipe just makes 9 brownies. I make mine in an old square blue speckled pan. Go here for the recipe.

Here is the best banana recipe. (thanks Jen!) John often makes it, ok not really often. It is a treat and makes 2 loaves. Yum.

Enjoy!

Art Therapy #22

This is where Rae and Nancy make postcards and send them to each other via snail mail. I am always excited to get her oversized kraft envelope. I usually send a shimmery pale yellow one.

Oddly this collage reminds me of my Mom and high school. Less oddly, it is made from the creative mess on my desk. Mom was a brunette and this was her color palette. She would suggest these colors for me. I remember knitting a sweater in these colors. My color choices at that time were lime, aqua and teal blue. My favorite outfit was a teal sweater with a matching mini skirt. The yarn is actually scraps from my Mom’s yarn stash. Funny how bits of desk mess can come together to tell a story from long ago.

I fear that Nancy’s card suffered some in the mail. It is sort of odd but I think we both made our postcards out of scraps of stuff on our desk.

But she poses a good question, is this art?

I would say that it is in the eye of the beholder.

I was recently at the Palm Springs Art Museum and saw this piece. Frankly, I wondered the same thing.

I recently visited Nancy. For some reason we were talking about each of us have the best brownie recipe. So we decided to each do a postcard with our recipe. This one is mine. Although it is really my friend Jane’s recipe from a 1960s cookbook of hers. Although I suspect that it is a recipe from the 40s or 50s. I used fonts from cookbooks of that era. The mixer is an illustration from my Kitchen Doodles font. I colored it avocado green. I actually had this exact mixer in that color.

I had already used this recipe on a dishtowel I designed for my friend Erica’s birthday. If you want one the fabric can be found here. You just have to hem the edges.

I’ve saved the best for last.

Nancy said, “I’ve made these brownies - they are great! I got the recipe from a magazine interview with Hepburn. They quoted her directly so this is the recipe in her own words - you can hear her right?”

I find it interesting that except for minor changes these are both the same recipe.

Enjoy!

Rae