Pumpkin Paradise: Something New for the Season

Dear Suzy,

I love pumpkin flavored things, so of course this is my favorite season! Still, I find that after more years than I'll own of eating all the traditional fall desserts, I am sick of classic pumpkin pie! I know it's a terrible thing for a pumpkin lover such as myself to say, but I just think it could be... jazzed up a bit, don't you? I'd ask for a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, but cheesecake is so very heavy! What can I make this year to spice things up?

Pumpkin'd Out,

Mrs. Spratt

Dear Mrs. Spratt,

I have the perfect recipe for you! It's called "Chai Cheesecake Pumpkin Pie" and it's one of my original recipes. 

This pie can be and has been multiplied to serve large groups.

This is a hotel pan serving about 40.

It has everything you love about pumpkin cheesecake without being quite so heavy. It does include both weight measurements and volume measurements, so a scale is useful. If you don't have a scale, there are some excellent weight-to-volume converters on google to help you convert it easily. I really like this one. I hope you enjoy! I encourage all of my readers who try this recipe to post photos of their results in the comments- I love to see them!

Chai Cheesecake Pumpkin Pie

        Yield: 2 pies

Filling:

1#2oz cream cheese, SOFT 17oz sugar .5oz corn starch 10oz sour cream 3 chai tea bags put through a strainer to get the big pieces out 15oz Pumpkin puree 5 eggs 1.5 tsp vanilla 1 can evaporated milk

Crust: 8 Graham crackers .5 box club crackers 2 sticks butter 4 tbsp sugar

Instructions:
- First combine sugar and corn starch in a sifter/strainer, sift into a mixer bowl and mix well - Add soft cream cheese and mix at medium power. - Scrape whole bowl and mix again - Scrape whole bowl and mix again - Scrape whole bowl and mix again (seriously all 3 times, it's super important- trust me!) - Scrape bowl well and add sour cream - Mix @ half power - Scrape bowl well
- Add chai spices and pumpkin puree and mix - Scrape bowl completely and mix again - Add eggs one at a time while mixing - Add evaporated milk and vanilla while mixing - Pulverize the crackers into crumbs - Melt butter - Pour sugar and butter into crumbs and mix well - Smooth crust mix into two pie pans - Par bake crusts for 5 minutes at 325 - Pour filling into crusts - Place pans into a cookie sheet and place the cookie sheet into the oven (preheated at 325) - Pour hot water from a pitcher or liquid measuring cup into cookie sheet so that shallow water covers the whole surface without splashing into the pies - Bake pies until just barely jiggley in the center - Pull out pies, leave cookie sheet - When oven is cooled, remove pan of water - Cool pies for about an hour, chill overnight.

You may be wondering why on earth you need to scrape the bowl so many times. Simply, the biggest difference between a perfect cream cheese dessert (particularly cheesecake) and an... amateur one... is that a perfect cream cheese dessert has no spots, specks, chunks or blobs of white when you cut into it. The more you scrape and re-mix, the more likely you are to have it come out perfect. Especially with a pumpkin pie with orange filling, those white specks of cream cheese are nobody's friend.

Peace and Sanity

This man is my hero.

I don't know his name. I don't know anything about him except one of the most important things in the world.

Let me back up a bit.

I saw him 2 days ago when I was out to lunch with some of my family. We were waiting for a table to open up in a tiny, hole-in-the-wall bakery, so I was, naturally, assessing everyone around me and the stage of consumption their lunch had reached to guess how long the wait would be. Then I noticed this man. I'm going to name him Phil. Phil was eating a salad and some bread. There was no phone in sight. There was no lunch companion at his table. There was no newspaper, book, nook, laptop, blackberry, pen with napkin scribbles... nothing. Just his plate. Being the awkward, voyeuristic people watcher that I am, I noticed and immediately became fascinated. 

I looked around at the other tables. There were several other men eating by themselves, but this one had a newspaper... this one had his phone out... this one was talking into a headset (not a bluetooth, mind you- one of those headsets you see video gamers and air force pilots wearing- super classy). 

I was so fascinated with Phil that I actually took a [super creepy] picture by taking a photo of my grandma and zooming in. I knew I'd want a visual for the blog I was already writing in my head. (FOURTH WALL!!!!!!!!)

Phil wasn't in a hurry. I hope someone understands why this boggles me. He was sincerely, genuinely enjoying his salad; totally alone with his thoughts. Without distraction, without somewhere to hurry up and get to. He was smiling a little.

When is the last time you had a meal by yourself? When is the last time you had a meal by yourself that wasn't 

a) on the phone

b) on social media

c) reading something

d) watching tv

e) doodling on a napkin

f) eaten in a hurry because you have things to get to and nothing to occupy your mind

g) in the car

h) some or all of the above?

There is a common expression in literature or movies: "how do you sleep at night?"

It's an expression usually directed at persons whose behavior has caused others to wonder how they can stand to fall asleep with such a guilty conscience.

Imagine the clear conscience it takes to enjoy ones lunch, in this day and age, completely alone with one's own thoughts.

Phil has inspired me.

I want to discover the peace of a meal absent of outside connection.

I want to experience the sanity of being able to sit still with my own thoughts and not feel rushed to find something else to focus on.

Even make a standing appointment?

Phil, whoever you are, you're my hero.

I hope now he's yours too.

If there's something you'd like me to write a post about, or a question you'd like answered, click the "email me" link on the right hand side of the page.

Sweet Smoothie Secrets

Dear Suzy,

I've noticed when I order a smoothie at any place that uses fruit puree rather than real fruit- or even in addition to real fruit- the puree always has sugar added in the ingredients. Why can't the smoothie purees just be a puree of the fruit? Obviously the people who order smoothies are probably health conscious, why would they make it MORE sugary?

Flummoxed

Strawberry Shortcake

Dear Strawberry,

Excellent question! It does seem odd for the smoothie puree companies to add sugar to a product that is supposed to be healthy and fresh, but there IS a good reason! As a healthy foods consumer, you may have noticed that a strawberry in December never tastes as good as a strawberry in May. This has to do with seasons! While greenhouses and exports allow for most fruits to be available anywhere, any time, seasonality and the location of the farm have a large impact on the flavor of fresh produce. 

The big difference between a winter strawberry and a summer strawberry is that the summer strawberries naturally have more sugar. In order to provide a consistent product with a consistent sugar content and a reliable, familiar flavor all year round, chefs use a tool called a refractometer.

A refractometer uses light refraction to determine the amount of sugar in a liquid. By adding sugar - or water - to a smoothie base until each batch achieves the same light refraction, it becomes possible to take something out of one's control, like the natural sweetness of fresh fruit, and make it consistent. 

When I worked at the four seasons, we used the refractometer to measure the sugar in our sorbet bases and sauces. Sometimes, when the fruit was in season, we actually had to add a little water to lower the overall sugar in order to have a consistent product! Other times we would have to add a little or a lot of simple syrup (sugar and water brought to a boil to dissolve the sugar) to make the sorbet taste palatable.

All this to say, while it is understandable that you are not interested in adding sugar to your smoothie, if you got a smoothie that reflected the natural sweetness of the season you ordered it in, you might never go back after a winter whim turned sour (literally). The smoothie companies aren't trying to trick consumers by making their smoothie bases sweet like soda, they are doing what they can to offer a consistent, reliable flavor year-round. Generally speaking, the amount of sugar per serving is not significantly more than would be naturally occurring in whatever fruit flavor you order during that fruit's peak season. 

There are, however, better and worse companies of course, and some companies do add more sugar and other additives as preservatives, so that their purees last longer. The better ones actually arrive at their distributors' locations frozen, so that they can be thawed one unit at a time and be used up within a week or so without requiring extra preservative sugar.

Anxiety: A Room Full of Boxes

This post is extremely personal, but I feel like it is important to share. I hope it is enlightening or comforting or both to some of my readers.

The Room

In my mind there is a dim, circular room completely lined with shelves, wall to wall, beginning at the floor and climbing high to an unseen ceiling. All of these shelves are lined with red boxes- like the ones you can get at Neiman Marcus at Christmas. Each box is an opportunity, challenge or problem that I will eventually encounter in my life. Usually, I walk into the room and there is the box for today's challenge sitting on a table, and I open it to assess its contents: the options I have to proceed through and beyond the challenge. Sometimes the box is filled with options; these are welcome and easy, and the best one or two courses of action tend to stand out. Other boxes may only have one option, there in the back corner of the box, not always appealing but present and something I can take and move forward with. Sometimes the single option is even welcome assurance that it was my only choice.

I am blessed to have led a life which for the most part has featured full boxes; the world has been my oyster, so to speak, and I have had so many opportunities to select whatever path I desired to pursue. Somewhere along the line, though, I walked into that room and I opened a box and I found it empty. 

I panicked. I felt frozen. I didn’t know how to move forward, what to do next. Up to that point, I would go into that room in my mind, find the box labeled with the problem at hand on the table, open it up and find the next step, then I would take it out of the box and use my choice. Then the box, the problem, would go away. For years that was my sanity: walk in, open box, view options, make choice, take the next step.

After that first empty box, I slowed down. I still used my room, but I now knew that there was the possibility I would open a box one day and find nothing inside. By the second or third empty box, I became wary and anxious of opening my boxes- then of even entering the room. It manifested itself in my real life by developing an unreasonable aversion to certain things that almost always sent me to my room of boxes; I would avoid things that might notify me of a problem or a choice so that I wouldn’t have to face the boxes piling up on my table- what if one of them was empty? What if all of them were? (To my family who are reading this, I'll just say Email.)

When I had to deal with the growing mess in my room of boxes, I reached a point where I would get panicky just thinking about opening a box- a fear of the unknown. Most of the time I would open the boxes and find my choices, my next steps, and I would chastise myself for making so much of nothing- I'd gain some courage to open another box, and another, knocking out challenge after challenge, relaxing and building confidence UNTIL

I found myself frozen. The panic and anxiety was worse than ever. In the real world, I would have a physical panic attack, with hyperventilating, even crying, and I would go into a brief state of denial, in my mind I would walk out and close the door to the room and pretend it didn’t exist, and in reality I would block it out by watching a stupid show or reading a novel, or cooking. The box wouldn’t go away, and eventually it would get dealt with, often with a worse outcome for having been put off.

This story is not to showcase my struggles in a bid for attention or sympathy; I do hope that in being transparent, more people can feel comfortable identifying areas in which they need help, and realize that their "issues" do not define them; even the most "together" people have stuff going on they just aren't telling the world about. I hope it helps explain to people who do not deal with Anxiety what it looks like from the perspective of someone who has experienced it long term. 

I also want to share with those of you who deal with Anxiety in your own lives what has helped me begin to overcome it. First, I have come to realize that there is no such thing as an empty box. I still have to remind myself of that before I open a new one, but truly, when you think about it, there is no such thing as a problem or a challenge with no next step. The next step might not always be appealing, but it always exists- for all the boxes I thought were empty, I have never actually had my entire life come to a halt; it always somehow moves forward. Sometimes the only thing in the box is prayer, but in my experience it is the best option I could hope for, and should be the first next step I take from any box. The second important thing I have learned (with the help of wise counsel) is that the boxes generally get less and less full the longer I leave them unopened. The longer I wait to face my challenges, the less options I will have for the next step.

If you struggle with anxiety, I encourage you to share it with someone you trust. They may not understand initially but I challenge you to take some time to walk them through it; it is healing to feel like there is someone with you when you encounter particularly intimidating “boxes”. If you don’t have anyone you feel comfortable processing with,  feel free to email me- I can’t offer much more than an ear, but sometimes that’s just what you need!

The Best Meals of My Life -- So Far

I was asked recently what the best meal I've ever eaten was. It is obviously hard to pinpoint that after 25 years of eating solids, so the best I could do was narrow down a list of top contenders. Here they are, in chronological order:

1) Bogota, Colombia. I was 16, in Bogota with a group from my church, helping a children's home and their ministry to the street children of Colombia. We were on top of a gorgeous mountain, working hard to take down a fence and build a large playground for the children to visit on field trips for an escape. We had been working hard all day, and when we broke for lunch they passed out wrapped sandwiches. Those sandwiches- OOOH those sandwiches. Homemade, with 3 slices of bread, a medium-fried egg, sliced cold chicken, shredded lettuce, cheese, I think avocado, some kind of spread- I inhaled it so fast I wish I'd paid better attention to its contents. But up on that mountaintop, overlooking the city, after doing hard, physical work, in this beautiful place-- that was a perfect sandwich. 

[Bogota, Columbia, 2005]

2) Paris, France. I went for a mini-vacation with my mom, and one evening she took me to one of the fanciest restaurants I have ever set foot in, where the only thing I recognized on the menu happened to be my all-time favorite dish, Boef Bourguignon. The Coke I ordered was more expensive than my mom's wine, and the dish came out piping hot in a rust colored ramekin remarkably fast. The sauce was dark, rich, reddish brown, and the thing that distinguished it from other versions I'd had in the States was that the sauce in that single ramekin had to contain at least half a bottle of reduced burgundy. It also had large sprigs of fresh thyme that packed an aromatic and savory punch. The overall experience in Paris of course adds fondness to my memories of this dish, but it was also genuinely one of the best things my mouth has ever experienced.

[Photo taken by me!]

3) Seattle, Washington. I was visiting Seattle for a friend's wedding. My parents and I visited Pike Place Market and "caught" a side of smoked salmon from the famous fish market. We then went to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and set out a blanket and a picnic of bagels & lox, with the salmon from the market, cream cheese and bagels. There we ate while watching the live salmon jumping upstream at the site of the dam, in perfect weather at sunset.

[Photograph obtained from Google]

4) My wedding reception. While you might be thinking, "OK, DUH- of course on the best day of your life you would consider it the best meal of your life." But in all practicality I did plan that meal very carefully to be exceptionally awesome. On the menu were food trucks; the Easy Slider Truck (www.easyslidertruck.com) and the Guava Tree Truck (www.theguavatreetruck.com) in Dallas. My Husband and I partook in the best of the East Slider's offerings- The Sweet & Low-Down burger; Angus beef with goat cheese, strawberry jam, salty, crispy bacon (though both my Husband and I both picked it off) and toasty buns. For dessert, because I am a pastry chef and I have actually never been much of a fan of cake, we instead arranged to have two croquembousche (conical towers of cream puffs) and a tree of macaroon cookies made by an amazing local baking company called Bisous Bisous (www.bisous-bisous.com).

[Photos courtesy of Becca Ann Photography in Dallas, TX]

What about you? What is the best meal or item you've ever eaten? Did the setting make a difference? Leave your story in the comments!

Restaurant Review: Cheddar's

Nearly every week for over 5 years, I've met my grandmother for lunch or dinner. It's the highlight of my week every time, because my grandma is AWESOME. She's in her mid-80's, volunteers regularly, lives by herself upstairs, does crossword puzzles like she's channeling Will Shortz, knits roughly 62.4x faster than I do, sponsors a child in a 3rd world country and writes him letters in Spanish, reads at least 1 book per week, goes visiting people younger than herself at the nursing homes to read to them, and still makes time for her youngest granddaughter every week. I could and should and probably someday will write a blog about what I've learned from my weekly lunches, but this particular blog was inspired by the meal I had at our most recent dinner.

Cheddar's is, by most people's standards, a very middle of the road, American eats establishment. Middle priced, general American-style menu, nestled right in there alongside Applebee's, Fridays, maybe a notch above Chili's (two notches lately, anyone else feel like Chili's has gone downhill lately? or have my standards just improved with adulthood? I digress). HOWEVER. As I have periodically patronized the Cheddar's in my area, their menu, food preparation standards, and staff have gotten better and better.

My favorite dish at Cheddar's is their Asian Salad. It sounds standard enough, most places have an Asian salad nowadays, but Cheddar's Asian Salad stands tall above the rest, and not just literally.

[Photo source: www.thedallassocials.com (via Google Image)]

Not only is this a low guilt meal, - - - - - No, I'm going to skip the cliche, commercial-sounding review of the obvious and just describe this dish. It has crunchy, crispy wontons layered between a cold, dark-leaf, crispy shredded lettuce salad, tossed with diced mango, cucumber, spicy relish, grated carrots, tomatoes and grilled chicken breast, dressed with an Asian vinaigrette with chopped cilantro, and lightly drizzled with a thicker, salty sauce. 

It's not just about what's in this salad, it's about how they work together. First, of course, there's the taste- most important, and then the texture. The sour, tangy dressing with the slightly spicy, bitter cilantro (but just the smallest sprinkle- I'm not a member of the cilantro-loving camp, but I really like Cheddar's' use of it here), the cool, quenching, crunchy cucumber (again, not usually a fan of cucumbers but I like them in this salad!) with the slightly sweet, super crunchy carrots, juicy fresh tomatoes and the soft, sweet, aromatic mango pieces- all of this finished with lovely surprise bursts of spiciness from the infrequent bits of relish smattered throughout. The grilled chicken is well-cooked, never dry, and sliced thinly, adding a touch of smokiness and a welcome soft, al dente bite you can only get from properly cooked meat. The method they use to slice the chicken and toss it in with the salad, rather than laying it on top, allows easy fork-fulls and perfect bite-ratios (when you have a little bit of everything on one fork for the best bite). The wontons work perfectly, with the touch of oil from frying mellowing out some of the acid from the dressing, and the unimposing, super crispy starch converting me from croutons forever. All of this finished with the lightest sprinkle of some kind of salty Asian sauce that puts it over the top. 

[Phone photo of my dinner more than half eaten, I dug in before I could stop and get a photo of it fresh]

All the best elements: Sour, Tangy, Crunchy, Acidic, Sweet, Cool, Quenching, Bitter, Juicy, Soft, Smokey, Spicy, Aromatic, Salty- and most of all, Satiating. I usually make two meals of it. 

The cherry on top is that the salad comes with a warm, honey-butter drizzled croissant, which in all my professional experience I am willing to bet is baked freshly in-house.

Anyway, Cheddar's always has excellent food, and while I could make this stupidly long, suffice it to say you'll get your money's worth on pretty much every menu item except the chips and queso- queso is a little too thick and bland, chips are stale about 40% of the time. Still worth checking it out for a date, whether with your significant other or your grandmother.

Hell or Tinkerbell?

Today I'm going to be a pretty casual and speak about something that has been rolling around my mind for quite some time now- Hell.

Yes, that's right, H-E-double-hockeysticks. 

I suppose the "thesis" of this post would be...

I believe that Hell exists

^^^(Does Not Equal)^^^

I hope you go to Hell.

Allow me to explain. It seems that whenever I find myself in a conversation with a person whose philosophy of the afterlife does not include the Hell option, the underlying tone and occasionally stated feeling of the conversation is that in my owning that I believe that Hell not only exists, but is actually a place that certain people will end up, I am giving my personal consent to those people ending up there. This could not be further from what is happening. 

Before I dive into what exactly I believe and why I believe it and even why it does not mean I want to damn everybody to Hell, I would like to explain the most bare-bones basic logic of this theology:

IF Hell exists, then it exists. IF this is the case, my belief (no matter how weak or strong) that it exists does not in any way solidify or confirm Hell's existence. Likewise, IF Hell exists, YOUR*** belief (no matter how weak or strong) that Hell does NOT exist does not in any way nullify Hell's existence. Regardless of either of our beliefs, it either exists or it doesn't.

In case this argument does not make sense to you, because the verbiage is somewhat repetitive, I will give a more tangible example:

IF a banana exists, then it exists. IF this is the case, my belief (no matter how weak or strong) that it exists does not in any way solidify or confirm the banana's actual existence. Likewise, IF the banana exists, YOUR*** belief (no matter how weak or strong) that the banana does NOT exist does not in any way nullify the banana's actual existence. Regardless of either of our beliefs, it either exists or it doesn't.

This statement holds equally true if Hell does NOT exist. 

So here's the thing. It seems that most often, people who do not believe in Hell treat the beliefs of those who do in a similar fashion to that of the belief in Fairies in the story of Peter Pan:

Odds are good that I am losing you a little, it is a REALLY BIG topic and a lot of thinking to verbalize, but please, bear with me for another moment, and I'll try to be clear:

Nonbelievers in Hell often act as though the more I say I believe in Hell, or the more strong my belief in Hell is, the more real becomes- like the fairies. It's as if every time I own my belief that Hell exists, I am shouting in the person's face "I DO BELIEVE IN HELL! I DO! I DO!" and as a result, Hell becomes less a figment of my imagination and more a burning pit of justice.

Again I say, my belief in Hell and your*** nonbelief in Hell have no impact on whether it actually exists.

A particularly harsh truth that follows the same logic is:

No matter how hard you deny the existence of a banana, the banana's state of being will not change.

No matter how inconvenient the banana's existence is, the banana's state of being will not change

No matter how terrible the potential implications of the banana's existence are, the banana's state of being will not change.

To this point, I have been stating my logical defense for why I believe what I believe, and more importantly why that belief does not have anything to do with whether I think specific individuals will or should be damned to Hell. Now I will further explain why my belief in Hell has the opposite effect on my attitude about YOUR*** afterlife than seems to be most often expected.

I am a Christian. I have come to a point of hesitating to identify myself as such, selecting instead to say "follower of Jesus Christ" or similar, because so many broad stereotypes and labels have been associated with people who call themselves Christians. Here is what I mean when I call myself a Christian:

I believe in one God.

I believe in life after the death of our earthly bodies.

I believe in Heaven and Hell.

I believe that everyone sins.

I define sin as living in any way that is not in line with the holy character of God.

I believe I am a HUGE, WHOPPING sinner.

I believe you are, too (sorry).

I believe that God not only created, but really, REALLY loves all people- everybody.

I believe that God's character is strongly just, and that that justice carries through to there being consequence for sin.

I believe that the consequence for sin is death and Hell.

I believe that God loves people so much, He wanted to give us a way to avoid Hell, because we can't seem to stop stepping outside of that which is holy.

I believe that in His cosmic, bigger-and-smarter-than-me glorious logic, God determined that the best and only way to get around the perfect system of justice He established was to completely contradict the process.

I believe that to do that, God came to earth as His own son, 100% God but also 100% human, lived out a life on earth facing all the same temptations to sin that every other human faces, and remained holy. Then he underwent the punishment He didn't earn, but you and me and that guy over there earn on a daily basis.

I believe that this shook the foundations of the whole system of justice, and in doing so, God atoned for our unholiness- because Jesus Christ died, even though He was perfect, we don't have to!

And I believe that if we accept the gift that God gave us in this sacrificial atonement, we DON'T have to go to Hell! and we get to go to Heaven even though we totally don't deserve it (And I MEAN We).

But I also believe that we do have to accept God's gift of grace; He won't force it on us- that's part of free will.

So here's the deal. Now that you know exactly what I believe and why I believe it, I'd like to ask you to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Imagine that you have the deepest, most genuine belief that Hell does exist, that people will go there for ALL of eternity, and that you know a way they can avoid going there. Wouldn't you tell them?

Taking that into consideration, answer me this: How much would I have to hate somebody if I knew all that and didn't at least TRY to tell them what I know?

If I truly believed you could go to Hell, and I truly believed I knew how to save you, but I decided not to tell you because it might make you feel uncomfortable or offend you, that would make me a jerk of literally eternal proportions. 

So in conclusion, I hope you at least come away with this: Yes, I believe in Hell. Yes, I believe people go there. NO, I don't want you to go there. God loves you, and I love you, and that is why I am telling you about it- not the other way around.

I recognize that this whole post is potentially controversial. I am genuinely not trying to pick any fights, but to present my understandings to the best of my ability. I welcome your responses, though I urge you to remain civil. If you have any questions or interest in having a conversation with me about anything in this post, feel free to click the "Email Me" link on the right side of the page, or send an email to asksuzyadvice@gmail.com. 

I try to minimize the Suzy's soap-box feature of this blog, but I do feel more strongly about this subject than any household tips, relationship advice or recipes. I will resume that content in the next post, though! Thank you for reading.

***By "your" I of course mean the hypothetical reader taking whatever stance is expressed, not literally you in the you sense, unless it happens to apply.