A night with Amy and Gern and Kristen and Mookie is all by itself going to be a wonderful evening, and true as ever was this the case last Saturday night. Following our huge meal of beef bourguignon, I was hoping to have a dessert that respected the change in weather that weekend, which was signalling more strongly that the season of autumn was upon us. Enter a wildly adapted concoction whose one shortcut was to employ a store-bought refrigerated puff pastry crust: apple and chai cream strudel. Everything about that dessert was a variation and creation from too much ideation, stealing notions here and tactics there from past recipes I've used. The outcome was passable, albeit grander in size and scope than our already-full bellies might have otherwise handled. We were dedicated conquerors, though.
I also decided to modify a dependably delicious ice cream recipe to scale up the quantity, which meant churning it in my old-fashioned electric ice-and-rock salt ice cream maker. I looked back at recipes from my friend and colleague Donna as well as a couple passed down from family to try to approximate the right approach. In the end, we had a fine and plentiful batch of brown sugar cinnamon ice cream as a seasonal addition to the braided pastry on our plates. I've written up what I did and added it as a clickable link below, with a downloadable pdf of that modified ice cream recipe.
The Latest Panhandler
Speaking of that quantity of ice cream, since there was enough to share, I took a container down the street to neighbors. As I was heading back home, an unfamiliar person approached me. “You look like you're wanting to talk with me," I called out. "What do you need?”
“A friend,” she replied.
“Well," I said, "since I don’t know you, I’m probably not that person. What do you need from that friend?”
“Some help,” she said.
“I have to tell you that Spring Street is a strange place to be looking for help. The good news is: Samaritan Ministries was hoping to help you. They planned for you. Bethesda Center was wanting to help you. They also planned for you. The Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army and Crisis Control Ministries and The Dwelling were all planning to be there for you. Why did you walk past where the help is, and come to where the help isn’t?”
Twenty years of downtown living has gotten me to a place of utter befuddlement about the panhandler dilemma, but I am working through my thoughts on why it is an off-kilter and confused situation, from my perspective. Perhaps that will be some lengthy future blog post. What I am convinced of at this point is that there is not a legitimate need that drives the pursuers of the hand-out on my street or on Restaurant Row. If there were, all these organizations dedicated to helping street people would be out here giving them money. Why do you suppose they don't think that's the best solution?
Apple Filling based on "Apple Turnovers," by Sam Merritt of Sugar Spun Run. [Published 08 September 2022]
Chai-Spiced Sweetened Cream Cheese Filling loosely adapted from "Blueberry Cream Cheese Pastry Braid," from Sally McKenney of Sally's Baking Addiction. [Published 16 February 2014]
"Old-Fashioned Chest-Churned Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream," adapted by me from "Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream," from Heather Tullos of SugarDishMe.com. [Published 11 September 2015]
No comments:
Post a Comment