The Vanilla Bean Blog | A Baker's Soliloquy

a simple breakfast smoothie II

Friday, March 7, 2014 | 37 Comments

‘Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.’ – Lemony Snicket

If you follow along my Instagram account, you know that I’ve been baking a lot lately. I’ve been enjoying all the likes and new followers my cakes and muffins and cookies have been getting, but after spending a few days in reflection, I’ve decided I need to take a little break from all the sugar and butter that’s been flying around my kitchen. There are many reasons involved here, but the main one is my food lifestyle has not been a healthy one as of late. I’ve found myself stress-eating and finding comfort in layers of puff pastry, instead of working through problems and issues that I need to face.

Several times over the course of this blog, I’ve written about needing to change the way I eat. It’s been dramatic, and hopeful, but never long lasting, or very fruitful. And I hesitate to write about it here again. Food has always been a touchy subject for me, as I spent most of junior high and high school slightly overweight and very insecure. The hallways of my high school were not safe to me; my size and shape were frequently pointed out (and, on particularily bad days, mooed at). I escaped in books and food. I moved on to college, and set my mind on ‘becoming skinny,’ but lost weight in a very unhealthy way. I had finally obtained the frame I always hoped for, but I couldn’t love that body, either. Each look in the mirror was a critical one. I only heard the names I had been called growing up; I only saw an overweight girl looking back at me. The rest of the years played out mostly the same: a constant struggle of slightly gaining weight and then slightly losing it, but always obsessing about it. These last few years have only seen gain; after having two children, working through a friend’s death and some other personal issues, baking and eating has been a way to deal with the stress, to soothe the places of brokenness.

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Two days ago my daughter came up to me and gently said, ‘I just think you’ve had too many treats today Mommy.’ This winter was brutal to us, cold and never-ending, with my family sick most of the time. I found myself in the kitchen more than ever. I’ve never met a kinder soul than my daughter, and her little voice, her sincere concern, really struck me. I decided then and there it was time to try, again, to make a change.

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I’ve hesitated about posting this. This space was created to write a family food history, and while I want my chocolate cake and banana bread to be here, I think the struggle has a place, too. My normal tendency would be to start dieting or only eat fruits and vegetables for weeks and then burn out, but I know now the real issue is learning moderation, and finding a place of balance. This has always been the hardest lesson for me. I still have a few jobs that require baking, and I believe that celebrations require a cake, so there will still be butter and sugar in my life. The hard part is to work baking into my day or week, while eating well the rest of the time. I’ve taught myself an all or nothing approach, and now it’s time to learn balance. And while my last few years have taught me that there is no such thing as perfect balance, I think it’s important to try for it all the same.

So here’s my simple breakfast smoothie. It’s filling and delicious, with yogurt, bananas, berries, spinach, and honey. I’ve been making it the night before, and with a gentle stir in the morning, it’s ready and waiting to start your day off right.

peanut butter granola with cacao nibs and bittersweet chocolate

Saturday, March 1, 2014 | 41 Comments

It snows in here.
It snows forever, but there’s no Christmas underneath this weather.
When it blows here and gets real cold,
I wanna trip myself and fall upon your fabulous sword
and move
here by the stained-glass window.
Forget about the inside ghetto.
Down here on the hardwood floor,
the lines on the ceiling start to swim once more
like a cheap Renoir,
a fake Van Gogh,
a pop Monet,
a blue Degas.
I breathe you.
I need you.
-Over The Rhine, Jack’s Valentine

I’ve had those lyrics running through my head since January; always winter, never Christmas* has sort of become my theme song this year. I apologize if I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but when your days consist of shivering, coughing, and cleaning up after sick peeps, you start to view the world through crazy eyes. And wake up every morning craving coffee. And chocolate cake. Although, I’ve discovered, eating cake for breakfast doesn’t really make my day any better, in fact, all that butter and sugar first thing can make it rather worse. So that’s when I came up with this breakfast bowl: peanut butter granola with cacao nibs and chocolate. Just a tiny bit of bittersweet grated over the top makes for a delicious bite, and is just enough chocolate to soothe my frazzled nerves.

‘[B]efore them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you ever heard it? Can you remember?’*
*Both from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, by CS Lewis.

chocolate mini cakes with hazelnut buttercream

Thursday, February 27, 2014 | 34 Comments

‘Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming of something else.’ – Miranda July

This sentence stuck out to me today after a night of taking care of sick kids, another morning of -10 degree weather, more news of cancer and sadness, and a winter with no end in sight. Deep sighs, and one foot in front of the other.

I made these little cakes a few days ago, when the sun was shinning through our windows and we were saying things like, ‘finally we are all healthy!’ and ‘this cold can’t last much longer!’ Dreamers dreaming dreams.

Some beautiful things: Laura has a chocolate hazelnut torte up today, if you need a vegan and gluten free chocolate-hazelnut fix. Melissa made my chocolate bread and has exciting news. And, this article by The Onion helped me smile today. ‘You just have to keep carrying the flame inside you. No matter how hard it gets to be, you carry that g-d*m fire. It’s a hard world. Life is hard. But no matter what, you carry that fire, and you don’t let go.’

Feed a Child, Nourish a Mind

Monday, February 10, 2014 | 7 Comments

Five days a week I make a lunch for my daughter to take to school. Some days she helps, picking and choosing what kind of sandwich, treats, and fruits and vegetables are tucked inside her lunch bag. I trim the crusts from her sandwich, and sneak a little note inside, reminding [W] that we are thinking of her, missing her. Other times I am muttering and grumbling as I make it, remembering right before bed that it needs to get done. Those are the nights I rummage through cupboards as I realize I am out of bread again, and desperately trying to find anything to fill up her bag.

But the point is, my daughter has a lunch, every day. And while occasionally it’s a hodgepodge affair, she always has healthy food to eat, and she never goes without. But sadly, there are many, many children who do not have this luxury. Did you know that 65% of all South African children live in poverty, and 20% of those children are orphans? The Lunchbox Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing a daily meal for orphaned and vulnerable school children in township and rural areas of South Africa, a country where 65% of all children live in poverty. Receiving food encourages these children to stay in school and obtain their education. Today I have partnered with them and The Giving Table to help raise awareness for this important cause.

$10 can feed a child for a month, $100 for a year. The simple act of providing each child with protein-rich peanut butter sandwiches and a piece of fruit, or hearty soups, stews with vegetables or enriched porridge, makes a substantial difference as it nurtures and encourages each child’s attendance and performance at school. Not only is it often their only guaranteed meal of a day, but children are more likely to attend and stay in school to obtain this basic sustenance.

Interested in helping? Help us raise $5,000 by giving whatever you can today. Every child deserves lunch.

*All text in italics is from The Lunchbox Fund.

banana-chocolate-coffee muffins with whole wheat flour

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 | 44 Comments

I just got the notice, school is closed again due to cold weather. This never happens here in Minnesota, where we complain about the weather always but secretly pride ourselves in surviving it every winter. We are so strong, we can bike through blizzards! My daughter’s face will light up in the morning when she hears the news: you get to stay home yet again. She likes school just fine, but she loves home so much more.

And I like home so much more, too; I enjoy days tucked snug in our little house. But there are moments where the walls feel a bit too close together, and we are bumping into each other all day long, snippy and snappy and dreaming of oceans. We pull out mixing bowls and curl up with the same old books; there becomes less and less to say to each other.

‘Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.’ (The Little Prince)

I risk winter every year outwardly, but it’s taken me many years to begin to take a chance with it otherwise. I tend to fight it at first, but once January has set in, I usually decide to take the plunge. There is snow that muffles all sounds except a mind that won’t quiet, and a moon that seems to burn straight through frosted windows, it’s light cutting through skin and bone. There’s a wind so cold and clear it keeps the senses alive and awake through the darkest of nights. I breathe deep and rush in to ice and dark, and the hope of spring waiting for me, nearby.

A few things:

-Chris Pratt’s Ode To Jean Claude Van Damme (deleted Parks and Rec scene)

-’My smart little sister says that people are wrong when they talk about how you need to be brave to get out of your comfort zone, travel, and see things. The travel and perspective–the escapism, really–are a privilege. The real courage is needed at home, where the ordinary things don’t change unless you work to make them so, where you face old demons and new challenges, and where you can’t just get on a plane to the next destination.’ -The Yellow House

-I love Izy’s photographs.

-I was terribly excited to find myself on the Food & Wine blog last week. Also, some talk about books + food + other such things over on Paper/Plates.

creamy carrot orange soup

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 | 31 Comments

It’s been cold here, colder than we’ve known. I’ve found myself hiding in layers of sweaters and socks and hand-me-down quilts. Our house creaks and booms as the wind tries to make it’s way in, but it cannot find us here. We all huddle close, eating popcorn and watching movies and losing ourselves in familiar books.

Soup and bread seemed like logical choices the past few days. After too many weeks of too many treats, my body begs for simple, clean foods: dug from the earth, and plucked from a tree.

‘The cold finds the skin but doesn’t find the heart. What I didn’t know then was that the cold constricts the blood vessels, which is important when one needs to staunch a hemorrhage, when one needs to stop the blood from flowing. So I’ll take my frosty windows and white world just as long as it pulls, pushes so the heart finds warmth and beats stronger, a fire, a flame, a Caribbean sea, a cup of coffee, you and you and you and me.’ – Melody Heide

A few things:

*I think this is my favorite part of Downton Abbey: if Downton Abbey took place entirely on Facebook. (spoiler alert)

*I received Tartine 3 for Christmas – it’s beautiful.

*My dear friend Melody wrote that paragraph above; the rest of her piece is here.

*Chia Lemonade! I love these photograph.

*I have a little interview in this month’s Spenser magazine, and also in the Huffington Post.

vanilla bean snow cream

Thursday, December 26, 2013 | 24 Comments

‘A rain had fallen from some warmer region in the skies when the cold here below was intense to an extreme. Every drop was frozen wherever it fell in the trees, and clung to the limbs and sprigs as if it had been fastened by hooks of steel. The earth was never more universally covered with snow, and the rain had frozen upon a crust on the surface which shone with the brightness of burnished silver. The icicles on every sprig glowed in all the luster of diamonds. Every tree was a chandelier of cut glass. I have seen a queen of France with 18 millions of livres of diamonds upon her person and I declare that all the charms of her face and figure added to all the glitter of her jewels did not make an impression on me equal to that presented by every shrub. The whole world was glittering with precious stones.’ – John Adams

photographs + links

Thursday, December 19, 2013 | 8 Comments

A few links:

Rosie Thomas covers December Child. Beautiful.

Also, Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street. He’s amazing.

And! Star Wars Holiday Christmas special. Or Amy Grant Christmas special. You choose.

I have Braided Chocolate and Cacao Nib bread over at Bread in Five, Pumpkin Bars at Handmade Charlotte, and Chocolate Bark at Food 52.

Happy Holidays, dear Reader! xo

a few of my favorite things {giveaway!}

Tuesday, December 10, 2013 | 182 Comments

I remember the first time I heard about two people meeting up after finding each other on the internet. A girl from my highschool had met ‘the one’ in a chat room, and her and the stranger were going to go ahead and get married. It was 1999, and I was totally freaked out. There were so many ways the story could end, but it seemed obvious he was a pyscho path and she would probably wind up in a Misery -type situation. At least, that’s what my sister and I concluded. But, years passed and they were still together, and unharmed. Soon, meeting people online started becoming a more common occurrence; friends started using online dating services, people were falling in love, and no one was getting murdered. I stopped assuming the worst.

Now, of course, it’s 2013, and discovering friends (or lovers) online is normal; everybody’s doing it. I would have been terribly surprised, way back then, to find out future Sarah had discovered all these lovely, beautiful people in over food blogger land. There are the kind readers who leave comments and cheer me on, who send me wishes of health when I am sick. There are the fellow bloggers I’ve met and sipped coffee with, who have eaten in my home, sent me encouraging emails and sweet little packages, and treasured books and notes. I’ve found some beauty in places where I was certain nothing good could grow.

So here’s a little thank you. It’s not much; I wish I could sent you all a little package filled with some of my favorite things. But one reader has a chance to find this in their mailbox one day soon: some items that make time in my home a little more lovely. There are my favorite baking staples: cacao nibs, vanilla beans, fleur de sel, and decorative chocolate sprinkles. Beeswax candles and natural parchment paper are always in good use. Good coffee to sip and chocolate to nibble on are a must, as well as a good book to read. Toaster tongs and tiny measuring spoons aren’t a necessity, but they make daily tasks much more enjoyable.

Most everything I purchased myself, but I was given two lovely items to include. The toaster tongs are made by Buckaloo View. I met Liesl (who helps her dad with the shop) years ago through our blogs, and was so happy when she sent me a pair (also, check out her blog and shop, they’re lovely).

Theo provided the cocoa nibs, and I appreciate their fair trade and organic products, and their commitment to sustainability. You can read more about their mission and story here. Also, they sell lots of tasty chocolate.

The other items are just favorites from my local co-op; Dogwood Coffee is delicious, and Salty Dog Bars are my weakness. And the book is a fun read; some classic food writing.

To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment with your email! You can leave me your favorite Holiday album, but you don’t have to. Good luck, and thanks so much. I’m thankful for you. (Giveaway is open to everyone!) Winner is Amanda from Cookies & Corgis!

(And, also for you! A Holiday Mix! And one more from last year!)

pomegranate + white chocolate scones

Friday, December 6, 2013 | 28 Comments

Do you mean to tell me you will see no fissure?
Do you prefer to look on the plain side?

For all that, the setting suns are open.
The end cracks open with the beginning:
Rosy, tender, glittering within the fissure.

Do you mean to tell me there should be no fissure?
No glittering, compact drops of dawn?
Do you mean it is wrong, the gold-filmed skin, integument,
shown ruptured?

For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken.
It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack.
-D.H. Lawerence, Pomegranate