This post was intended to be about the long weekend I just spent in Southern Vermont, hiking and sunbathing and resting.  But today was just one of those days, and when I arrived home from work at 9pm (far too late), soaking wet (forgot my umbrella), hungry, and disgruntled, I wasn’t really in the peace-and-sunshine sort of mood.  I was more in the judge-everyone-around-me sort of mood.  I’m looking at you, anxious guy on the subway playing molecule identification games on your iPhone and continuously jiggling your legs back and forth into mine.  And you too, large thighs girl eating chicken with your fingers on the subway.  And you, angry bus driver man with no pity for a soaking wet girl carrying a partially split bag of groceries.  Usually, none of you would bother me, but today, I judged you all.  In fact, the only person that I really liked when I got home from work was my roommate Allison, because she happened to be cleaning the bathroom, and it kind of made my day.

So, even though I’m over most of my grouchiness, no Vermont stories today.  But I did make a cake that I wanted to share with you, so I’ll do that for now.  And the story of me making this cake is actually kind of similar to the story of me being a grouch, in that it involves a rainy afternoon and needing a little comfort.  Because as soon as I stepped off the train on my way home yesterday afternoon, it started pouring.  Pouring in that torrential, summer way that you know can’t last for more than an hour and is kind of inspiring in its intensity and makes me want to kiss someone (preferably Trevor, unless Ryan Gosling is available) Notebook-style.  I didn’t actually mind the rain that much, but by the time I got to my front door, I was dripping, so I stripped down and threw everything into the laundry and hopped into bed with a bowl of fresh linguine, cream, and parmesan, and watched the Desperate Housewives finale.  (By the way, I can’t believe it’s over, like, forever.  I might have to start at season 1 again.)  And after that, my errands and ambitions for the rest of the afternoon started to seem very unappealing, whereas baking one of the gorgeous, simple, rustic cakes from Nigel Slater’s Ripe, which my parents had just given me as a birthday present, and staying in bed eating it seemed quite appealing.  So, that’s what I did.

Since my dad had given me several pounds of just-picked rhubarb on my way out the door earlier that afternoon, I used some of it to make this Cinnamon-Polenta-Rhubarb cake.  With a dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of rhubarb syrup, it definitely hit the spot.  It seems that I have a thing for all things tangy and polenta-based, especially in the springtime, as is evident from this cornmeal-cranberry cake and this strawberry-cornmeal breakfast cake.  I just like the hearty unfussiness of these cakes – easy to make, easy to eat, not too sweet, with a burst of fresh tartness from the fruit.  This particular cake was a bit different from the others, somewhere halfway between a cake and a crumble, with a gritty crumb and smooth filling.  Given that I wasn’t digging leaving the house, I made some substitutions – brown sugar for golden baking sugar (don’t even know where I’d find that, anyway), orange oil extract for orange zest, grits for coarse ground polenta, etc. – but it still came out great.  Next time, I’ll try it exactly as written, but I don’t think the changes I made took too much away from the cake’s character.

Rhubarb-Polenta Cake with Cinnamon

Adapted from Ripe.  Serves 8-10.

• 1 lb. rhubarb, rinsed and cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 1/4 c. turbinado sugar (sugar-in-the-raw)
• 4 TBS water
• 3/4 c. coarse polenta or grits
• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 c. light brown sugar (or sugar-in-the-raw, blended in the food processor for 5 seconds)
• 1/2 tsp orange oil or zest of 1 orange
• 10 TBS cold butter, cut into cubes
• 1 large egg
• 3 TBS milk

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.  Place sliced rhubarb, turbinado sugar, and water in a baking dish and stir to mix.  Roast for 30 minutes, then remove from oven.  Use a slotted spoon to remove rhubarb pieces to a bowl.  Reserve syrup for drizzling on cake.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together polenta, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and brown sugar.  Use a pastry cutter to cut in the cold butter until the mixture has the texture of wet sand, with the largest lumps the size of peas.  In a small bowl, beat together egg, milk, and orange oil (or zest if using) until combined.  Add to flour mixture and stir gently with a fork, mixing just until the dough is thoroughly moist and slightly sticky.  Take care not to overmix.  Add 1 more TBS milk if dough is not slightly sticky to the touch.
3. Grease 8-inch cake pan.  Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the pan, pressing into the bottom and up around the edges.  Spread the rhubarb on top of this layer, leaving 1/2 inch between the rhubarb and the edge of the pan.  Spoon the remaining batter over the top of the rhubarb – it most likely won’t cover all the rhubarb, but don’t worry about it.  Bake for 45 minutes, then let cool on a cooling rack for at least half an hour before removing from pan.  Serve with fresh whipped cream and a drizzle of the reserved rhubarb syrup.

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Today is my parents’ 25th anniversary.

25 years!  That’s a long time to be with someone.  And I can’t imagine it’s a particularly easy thing to do, for them, or for anyone.  But my parents are still cute together.  They still hold hands. They still tease each other, and play.  Two summers ago, our family was out on an island picnic in Maine, and I remember watching my mom chase my dad around the beach, both laughing, and thinking that I wanted to have that.  To still be playful with the person I love after all that time.  I took a picture, to remember.  I have another picture, from this Christmas.  My dad is hiding a grapefruit down my mom’s shirt, and wearing his silly bathrobe that he only wears once a year on Christmas.  I want that too – for whoever I’m with to still do annoying things like hide random objects in my boobs.  Sometimes it’s the little things.  Sometimes it’s the big things.  My parents support each other.  They have dreams.  They share things, big things – me, my two brothers, two homes, plans for the future, 25 years of memories.

Given that my birthday is only a week before my parents’ anniversary, it’s almost always overshadowed in my mind by… well, me.  But this year I figured I’d share the spotlight I typically save for myself, and give back to them a little.  So last Saturday we went to the beach, and walked around plum island, and had a lovely dinner at Oregano in Newburyport, and I brought them this cake.  Really I wanted to make them a much fancier cake, this cake to be specific, but work sort of got the better of me last week and I ended up needing to meet them by train, making cake transportation hard.  Not that that’s an excuse, so parents, you can expect more from me in the future, but I at least wanted to bring them a small treat and let them know, if only via blog post, how happy I am for them.

So parents, congratulations, I hope you have a relaxing time in Maine this week, and I love you!

Strawberry Cornmeal Cake

Recipe from The Family Kitchen.  Makes 1 loaf of cake.

A few notes about this cake – it’s very good, in a simple, homey way.  I thought it was a little bit sweet, so would consider reducing the sugar slightly (although I haven’t tested how it would affect the crumb), and don’t be shy with the strawberries – 1 1/2 c. wouldn’t overwhelm the cake or make the batter too moist.  I’ve left the recipe as written originally here though, since that’s how I made it.  A final comment – this cake smells AMAZING.  Like, truly delicious.  I should know – I sat on the train with it for an hour and a half and wanted to devour it the entire time.

• 1 stick salted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 oz. greek yogurt (1 Chobani container)
• 1/2 c. plus 2 TBS cornmeal or polenta
• 1 c. AP flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 c. sliced fresh strawberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and liberally grease loaf pan.  Whisk together the cornmeal, flour and baking powder in a small bowl, and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat the eggs in one at a time, incorporating fully between additions.  Stir in yogurt and vanilla.  Mix in the cornmeal mixture until just combined, then fold in the strawberries.  Pour into loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, until top is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with a few crumbs clinging to it.  Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then invert over cooling rack to finish cooling.

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I can’t think of any other way to start this post than “I made it.”  So:

I made it.

And yes, I am singing that in my head a la Kevin Rudolf.  It was that or Vitamin C, people, and that song got old after 5th grade graduation.

The past few weeks (months, semester, four years…) have been a bit of a roller coaster.  First there was the stress of finding a job, then the excitement of finding a job, then the relief of finishing my thesis, and then the fear of failing ECE27 and rendering all of my other accomplishments void.  Then, suddenly, way too suddenly, it was the last LDOC, and for a week I partied like I was a freshman again and thoroughly convinced myself that I never wanted to leave Duke.  Or even the premises of Shooters, for that matter.  And then even more suddenly it was this past weekend, and a whirlwind of events and dinners and parties and ceremonies and packing left me (and pretty much everyone else I know) exhausted, exhilarated, and a little bit numb.  And now, we, the class of 2011, are graduates.

I have a love-hate relationship with Duke.  As a freshman I had a blast, but drank like a fish, did poorly in class, and didn’t resemble any version of myself that I’d ever been.  Sophomore year I hit the wall and realized I had to get back to being myself, but that realization and process left me miserable, lonely, and ungrounded.  Escape came in the form of a semester in Prague, which was the best thing I could have done for myself.  While there I found balance, independence, and an everyday happiness I’d forgotten about.  Upon returning to Duke for junior spring, I promised myself that I would focus on staying true to myself and let the things I didn’t like about Duke be what they were, and for the most part, it worked.  Senior year was a mixed bag – I learned to truly value the friendships I’d been ignoring, I threw myself into class and the job search, and about every other week I felt that Duke was my home.  I stopped going home at every chance that I got, and I did a lot of the things I’d been wanting to do for the past four years.  I started to wish I’d experienced this side of Duke earlier on.  So the other day when my dad asked me to name the things I love most about Duke, I decided that that was the way to think about things – what I loved, what I gained, what I learned, and what I survived, not what got me down, or what I regret.  So, without being too wordy, I’d like to try to sum up the best parts of my Duke experience.

Engineering.  It surprises me, too, but my engineering education was one of my favorite parts of my Duke career.  Engineering pushed me, challenged me, and overwhelmed me, but it also gave me a community when I felt alone, a close relationship with incredible professors, small classes where I could learn pretty much without bounds, and a class of students who shared my experiences almost exactly.  Especially this past year, when I got to know the other civil engineers better than I had in previous years, the classroom became somewhat… enjoyable.

Pride, strength, and independence.  I’m really proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished at Duke.  We all should be.  Given that there were so many days I spent hating Duke, blaming every negative feeling I had on the slightly twisted social atmosphere, and researching schools to which I could transfer, I’m proud that I stayed.  I’m proud that I turned Duke into a place where I felt at home, that I love, even if it’s a bittersweet sort of love.  Like our engineering president rapped so well at our ceremony “that that that that don’t kill me, can only make me stronger.”  Duke challenged me – academically, morally, and personally – and I came out knowing better who I am, what I believe, and what I can accomplish.  And for that I’m grateful.

Friends.  I didn’t feel particularly sad at graduation, or saying goodbyes, because I know that I will take the small group of people that really matter to me with me throughout the rest of my life.  As lonely as I felt some days, without a big group who I could party with, in the end I realized that the friends I had were keepers, people I genuinely love, and that that’s enough for me.  What I will miss are the everyday encounters – smiles and waves on the plaza, laughing over a shared misunderstanding in class, meeting new people during games of beer pong – the campus experience is a friendly one.  So thank you to all the people – close friends, casual friends, and even those who only recognize me and smile – who filled my days at Duke.

The future.  Though leaving college is sad and terrifying, I’m excited about the rest of life.  I feel both lucky and proud to have so much good lined up for myself – a summer of traveling and relaxing, entirely work free; a job that I honestly think I’m going to enjoy; a beautiful house and exciting new roommates in Davis Square; a life close to the family that I missed more than I expected to.  There’s a lot of potential there, and a chance to start fresh, be the person that I wanted to be at Duke but couldn’t find the courage to do so, except with a few people in a few places.  It’s good to move forward.

I know this is way longer and sappier than my usual droning, so thanks for bearing with me.  I promise, I’ll never graduate and go all mushy on you again.  And with all that said, what better way to celebrate graduation than with a cake?  However, since a. I feel like a total cow after so many delicious celebratory dinners, and b. I’m still trying to use up all the odds and ends in my kitchen, I went for a light, breakfast-y, cranberry-cornmeal cake.  I started by following a Giada recipe, but halfway through realized that it used dried cranberries, so I made a few quick substitutions and crossed my fingers.  And it worked!  The cake was moist, flavorful, and well balanced.  I might reduce the sugar by 1/4 cup when I make it again, but other than that, a winner.

Cranberry Cornmeal Cake

Serves 8-10.  Original recipe.

• 1 1/2 sticks butter, room temperature
• 1 3/4 c. sugar, divided
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 c. fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 c. AP flour
• 1/2 c. fine cornmeal
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease and flour a 9 inch round cake pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and 1 1/4 cups of the sugar until pale and fluffy.  Add vanilla and stir to incorporate.  Add eggs and egg yolks one at a time and stir to incorporate.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking powder.  Fold into wet ingredients in two batches.
4. In a food processor, briefly pulse cranberries and remaining 1/2 c. sugar, until cranberries are in small pieces but not pureed.  Gently stir cranberries into batter, then spoon into pan and smooth with a spatula.  Bake for 50 to 55 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, and the top of the cake is golden brown.

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