Imagine...if you will

Imagine, if you will, the following...

I dawned shorts that day. Which if you know me, I rarely ever do. I wore my old school tee that says "I Love My Fry Guys," which was a canary yellow with a faded picture of the MacDonald's fry guy characters plastered on the front.

My instinct is to turn on the oven first. Years of classical training tells me I would much rather have the oven wait on me than vice versa.

I yank the freezer door open and a gust of icy air hits my face. I look at the Tetris-like masterpiece that is my frozen foods section. Delicately organized so that if I pull out my tub of French vanilla ice cream I won't get be knocked out by an avalanche of frozen solid whole chickens or a sack of frozen carrots. 

On the door is a shelf where my packet of neatly wrapped phyllo pastry slept. I should have pulled it out sooner but this was an impromptu baking session.

I saunter over to the microwave which I've now knighted as "Chef Mike" (Mike, like short for Microwave...I think it's clever no?) He can zap the hell out of anything you put in him. He can cook or REcook if you don't give him clear instructions. In this case, he was set up to merely thaw my pastry just enough so I can work with it.

20 second intervals. Chef Mike sometimes gets carried away.

I return to the refrigerator, this time to the chill chest, and more specifically, the cheese drawer. Yes, I actually store my cheese in the cheese drawer. 

I then pull out my ricotta (250 g to be exact) and proceed to drain it over a fine sieve. Why? Ricotta has quite a bit of moisture, moisture I didn't need.

Chef Mike beeps at me.  I open him up to find my pastry thawed and ready.  I replace pastry with a small bowl containing butter.  I love the smell of melting butter and prepared myself to once again relish the lofty aroma of that milky, nutty, and dare I say fatty liquefied butter.  I put my electronic sous chef to work once more.

I gently unwrap the papyrus thin leafs of phyllo.  I only need enough to make six. I take out what I need and replace the rest in a ziplocked baggy and back in the fridge. I'll make Salmon Wellingtons this week I said to the inner self, justifying ways to eat more of that crispy buttery pastry.

I take one sheet, lay it on my bench. Opp, uhh! My hair falls in my face. It wasn't a tactful hairstyle, using just a clip to hold my hair back.  I run to the powder room and readjust. I have too much hair on my head, time for a haircut? I quickly call the salon to book an appointment for the following day.  How easily I digress.

Back to my pastry, that I playfully paint the warm liquid gold, slightly salted, over the first sheet. Sugar and spice makes everything nice! I sing to myself as I then scatter a blend of cinnamon and castor sugar over the buttery layer.  My finger tips glisten from the oily shellack and the grainy texture of the sugar. I lick my thumb and then my index and middle fingers together. 

So imagine, if you will: Savoury-sweet. But more sweet than savoury! Rich slightly salted melted butter with a lingering warmth of cinnamon and flash of sweetness at the end. What does it remind you of? Christmas? Thanksgiving? Maybe Snickerdoodles? When's the last time you had a Snickerdoodle? *note to self...make Snickerdoodles*

I finished the layers trying not to lick my fingers between each addition.  Who cares? I'm the only one eating them! Might as well lick the pan you're going to bake them in! I dared myself. No, no...no licking pans or fingers. I frantically wash my hands. Then I washed them again after each layer. A thought of my childhood flashes by, as I remember licking the last Dorrito chip in the bowl before my little brother could get to it. The things kids do. Haha!

I had doctored up cylinders out of tin-foil, 6 in total, to wrap my greasy sheets of cinnamon-sugar around. They held well and sat in military fashion, 2 up 3 across. I like military fashion. I liked the tidiness of it. 

Into the oven my six butter cigars go. I turn my attention to the heart of the matter. The ricotta cream.  

I push down with my finger, the top of the cheese, stark white and fluffy. If clouds had a flavour, I'd hope it tasted like whipped ricotta cheese with vanilla and sugar.  

I plop the billowy puff of ricotta into a bowl and turned it round and round with my rubber spatula. I pull open my baking cupboard and tip-toe to reach my warm spices. You know the ones...

The ones that taste of comfort and joy. Of mulled wine and apple pie. Maybe banana bread or plum pudding. A flashback to my Nanny's Black Cake comes to mind.

But I don't need ALL of these to appear. This is about the creamy unctuousness of that ricotta! So my final choice...freshly grated nutmeg. Less often means more.

Sand paper sounds of the hard husky nutmeg grated over the ricotta floating down like delicious saw dust. The fragrance reminds me of eggnog. Nutmeg has the ability to make the mellowest of flavour profiles become rich and satisfying. Nutmeg = Magic. Not too much, as we decided, less is more.

I turn to the other end of my counter top and see a brown jar that says "SUGAR" on the front. Beside that jar were two other jars that say "COFFEE" and the other "TEA." I feel compelled to make a cuppa (tea) and do so in my favourite teacup. 

Imagine, if you will: A kettle whistles. Water is boiled. On standby is a teabag and 2 lumps of sugar in a small teacup.  Now, pour your just boiled water into that idle cup.  Watch it go from clear to rusty red, then to an almost crimson brown. Clanking your teaspoon in that cyclone of orange pekoe, crushing those sweet lumps, dissolving.  Keep stirring, and while you do, pour that milk (or in my case evaporated milk) in the middle of that typhoon. A pinch of cardamom powder and sip.

But my affair with my sugar tin was not over. I grab a tablespoon and add a scoop into my ricotta. Whipping and folding, adding vanilla then chopped dark chocolate. Have I made too much?  I mean there's only 6 cannolis. I could make more shells if need be. No need to waste such a lovely filling. Then I thought...No, you can't just EAT the rest. Crazy.

I rest my ricotta mash-up in the fridge, and continue to sip my tea.  I peep in the oven, oh! The shells look well tanned.  They lay on a red sil-pat, sizzling away like they've spent the day at the beach, fell asleep and woke up just in time to turn over, and NOT burn. 

I catch a hint of the cinnamon as I open the oven door and I get excited! I do a little half-time performance in my kitchen doing a pirouette on my tip-toes. Socked feet, grey surfer shorts that say "Billabong" on the tush and my beloved fry guys tribute tee.  Super Bowl, eat your heart out! Keep your chili dogs and nachos with Chez-Wiz...I got the cannolis!

I remove my crackly cinnamony vessels of joy out of the oven and allow them to cool.  

Now...the waiting game.  Everyone involved in this operation needs to chill out. Time to check Twitter, Facebook...Twitter again.  Oh Instagram, Facebook. Comment, comment, like, wait no, UNlike...nah Like it anyways.  WhatsApp, change settings, change background. Download app. Uninstall it, because it's the wrong one.  

Wait. Let's decorate these babies! I run back to the kitchen, grab the chocolate and give Chef Mike another assignment. I begin to riffle through my baking cupboard again to find pistachios and spill them frantically across my cutting board.

Slicing through emeralds. My chef's knife rocks back and forth to create a crumble of green gems scattered on my wooden block.  I scoop them into a bowl, my chocolate melted perfectly. Chef Mike to the rescue! 

I dip one end and then the other into the shiny chocolate. 

Imagine, if you will: Velvet chocolate, rippled cocoa ribbons looking for a companion to meet, fall in love with and never let go of. That companion is Her Majesty, the elegant pistachio who sits in a bowl beside him. The soft texture of the warm chocolate collides with chopped jewels of verdant wonder and they join. A holy matrimony indeed.

I fetch my filling and load it into a zip-locked bag.  I snip the corner and begin to pipe the filling into the cooled and bedazzled cylinder. From one end, then the other, the pastries fill up. 

I line them up, once again, in military fashion. This time on a white platter. 

My heart leaps. I feel inspired. I feel happy. 

To the gentleman who inspired the idea and then to write it down, I say many thanks.

Here's hoping your imagination tastes what I write!

With love,

The Girl who Likes to Cook

xo