use real butter

Recipe: peanut brittle

Here now, I don’t have a recipe for you in the typical step-by-step today. I have been cooking, just not documenting as lovingly as usual because it’s been hectic lately and a fraction of my daylight hours have been devoted to snow worship… Not to mention the ramp up of the ARP (ass reduction plan) leaves me pretty hungry and somewhat spent, so not a lot of patience for shooting intermediate steps. But my body is adjusting quickly and I’ll be back on it soon enough. My endorphins are flowing, my muscles are rock hard, and that waistline is shrinking. I shit you not, kids. Hyperactivity has its benefits.

After my run and bike the other day, I prepared a lunch of kale and fettuccine in homemade tomato and garlic sauce and it truly rocked my world. I don’t quite understand people who go on those ridiculous fad diets – eat carbs, don’t eat carbs, eat fat, don’t eat fat, eat meat, don’t eat meat. Moderation in all things, eh? And if you’d get ye lard butt of ye couch, perhaps it wouldn’t really matter if you had that Slice of Yum.

carbo loading?

Hmmm, what else… after I made the mac nut brittle, I gave it all away. I like to make sweets, sample them, and then get rid of them. Sort of a relative ass reduction plan (rARP) because you make all of the people around you fat so that you appear relatively slimmer. It’s a joke. A joke! I wanted to make peanut brittle – the buttery kind, not the glassy kind. HolyBasil mentioned that her mom used to make it. So on a lark I looked up a recipe last night and within the hour had a batch of this:

chunky brittle and stretchy brittle

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: macadamia orange brittle

The word brittle conjures up so many meanings. Brittle bones, brittle failure (okay, that’s a term in mechanics, but important for all sorts of materials studies), brittle personality. I’ll admit that when I hear the word brittle my mind immediately turns to brittle-ductile transition zones in the Earth’s crust. And yet my favorite meaning of brittle is the confection of a delicious nut meat suspended in the matrix of a caramelized sugary goodness, broken into delightfully dangerous shards that melt and crunch in your mouth. Swoon.

There are two camps of people when it comes to caramelized sugar. Those who love it and those who hate/fear it. I’ve been in both camps – twice. It was pretty easy to master at sea level although I did brick my fair share of pots of hot crystallized sugar when I got a little too cocky (read careless). What a bleeping mess. But in general it was a cinch to make. Then I moved up here, as in several thousand feet up. Caramelizing sugar became a little more finicky and I fell into the hate/fear camp. My pastry course at CSR helped with my “issues”. The introduction of acids like cream of tartar or lemon juice, and the addition of corn syrup helped to stabilize the mixture as it boiled to amber loveliness. Back into the love camp.

orange zest adds a subtle floral overtone

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I love Peabody. She’s got the right attitude about life as far as I’m concerned and that earns my respect (along with the fact that she generally kicks ass). I’ve thought a lot about life and the lemons and how some make lemonade and others just turn into sniveling messes as if a giant lemon has fallen from the sky and pinned them to the ground. In times of crisis, the true nature of an individual emerges. Sometimes it will surprise you for the better, and many times it will disappoint you. I pride myself in rolling with the punches through shitty times, and I do mean shitty times.

I have seen people wallow in self-pity or let their tragedies define who they are and dictate their lives. Not my cuppa, kids. My friend’s mother has a terrific saying: If you look up, there is no limit, and if you look down, there also is no limit. Life always could be better, or worse. Get over yourself and make the best of what you’ve got.

It’s very likely I will be losing my hair in the next several weeks. My surgeon delivered this news with what I detected was a hint of sympathy last month. I neither need nor want pity. It’s just hair and it will grow back. I understand it’s not the hair, but the condition that elicits this response in people. I am a rock and I am so gonna own this. Rather than feel blue, I went and lopped my hair off and dyed it blue.

grab life by the hojos

**Jump for more butter**