Appreciation: Peach Barbecue Sauce

-Because if you aren't slathering your meat in peaches then how else will you appreciate summer?-

As a child, I never really knew where to place my appreciation when it came to my parents and their summer grilling. My mom was the one who went to the store and bought all of the ingredients. She would be the one to make the marinade for our flank steak using her family's recipe. It was mom who would dote over it for the next three days and turn it when necessary to ensure the steak had absorbed all the flavor. On the grilling day mom would put together a salad and a side while my younger brother and I set the table.

After all this Dad would take the meat and toss it on the grill. He would watch it with a certain intensity usually only reserved for work and shotgun enthusiast magazines. In summer he saw grilling as his testosterone-inherited duty.

When dinner was served we would all thank Dad for the amazing work he did at the grill. Mom would be thanked as well, but always second to dad. After all, from my young point of view all I really saw was dad sweating over the blaring heat of the grill. Plus, I didn't like salad so I never really thanked mom for it.

It wasn't fair, but then life seldom is. Mom wasn't about to put down her children's father right in front of the whole family in order to get her proper due. She was reserved and very self-sacrificing that way. She still is. (Well, most of the time. If she's going to get a jab in it'll be a good one; "Mom! I can't believe you just said that!" "Well, it's the truth," she'll say nonchalantly.) As kids, though, nary a peep.

The Temperature Inside: Blueberry Pie with Thyme & Honey + Fearless Chocolate Winners

-When your karma turns sour, make it sweet with pie.-

I have terrible apartment karma. Faulty buildings seem to lie dormant in my life like a virus, occasionally flaring up with all the intensity and rage of full blown outbreak. No, wait, karma assumes I’ve done something bad to deserve this. Maybe in a past life I was a Saxon who toppled some great tower or other architectural testament to man’s vanity and artistic nature? I’m not sure, but I'm pretty sure I haven’t done anything in this life to warrant this string of luck.

Maybe that’s it? I just have bad luck. A dark cloud of doom and asbestos plaguing me with bad wiring and old pipes.

“Then again,” I said to myself while standing in my bedroom looking at the giant water-filled hole that had been jackhammered in only hours earlier, “maybe it’s just freak coincidence.”

You Can't Sissy Scones: Chocolate-Coconut Scones + Fearless Chocolate Review & Giveaway

-Scones that use a delightful brand of chocolate.-

I admit that sometimes I'm a baking wuss.

Seriously, I can be such a damn sissy about things that it gets to the point where even I roll my eyes back at myself. When it comes to fluting a pie shell or piping icing I can be a total buttercream drama queen.

Now it's not that I don't mind getting my hands dirty. I garden something fierce these days and I've earned the grit under my nails. I've worked with chocolate and beets until the skin on my hands is stained shades of scarlet and henna so dark you would think I spent my time elbow deep in vats dying textiles under the summer sun.

Still, we all have our particulars. I for one hate making scones.

Personal Religion - Part 2: Blueberry-Apricot Jam

-Because some things are easier to sort out than others.-

Hovering over the jamming pot is the place I do my deepest thinking. I make jam the labor intensive, slow way. I cook it on medium heat and stir, stir, stir until my hand begins to shake and, even then, I continue to stir, stir, stir. It ensures that the fruit doesn’t sit and scorch and that it all cooks up perfectly - evenly - every time. All this stir, stir, stirring grants me the time to mull over my thoughts, turning them over like shiny baubles lost long ago in the attic and found once again, and ponder their meaning.

The last time I made jam I discussed my history with religion. It’s rare that I ever give a topic more than a single post - my attention span won’t ever really allow it – but my most recent batch of jam left me to thresh out exactly what my beliefs are. Sure, I was raised to be a good, if not relaxed, Lutheran whose practice has waned like a the shrinking taper of a dinner candle these past many years.

So what is God to me now? I wonder...

Mistaken Identity: Blackberry-Rosewater Sorbet

-Make no mistake about the delightfulness of this spring sorbet.-

-Mission Viejo High School, 1999-

I was exhausted. Somehow I had scrounged enough cohesive thought on my most recent Algebra 2 exam and pulled off a B. The class was the bane of my academic life, an inescapable ding against my otherwise 4.0 GPA. I was getting tutored, studying like a maniac, and otherwise trying my best to scrape together good grades. A B was essentially the best I could do and probably used up the rest of my luck for the next few weeks. I was convinced that the class was completely useless in the long run anyways and couldn't understand the purpose of being beaten over the head with the derivative of a cosecant.

(By the way, to any readers out there who are in high school: Unless you plan to go to college for mathematics or engineering, you will never use Algebra 2, Calculus, or Trigonometry. Ever. At most, you will end up using the basics of Geometry and Algebra 1. Just thought I would confirm this ever-present high school complaint for you.)

As I made my way to the quad I spotted my friend, Tiffany. Her back was towards me but I could make out her tan skin, her short but bouncy curls like thick, winding ribbons, and her varsity jacket.

Tiffany and I were friends who had met in marching band. I was the only male flute player in the woodwind section and she one of the color guard girls. We were good friends who spent a lot of time together; she would teach me to spin her color guard flag, sending it soaring high into the air at dizzying speeds. I loved the kaleidoscopic spin of the colors and the pata-pata-pata-pap of the fabric as it fought against the whipping air. I taught her the basics of the flute and helped her with her English homework, and how to best memorize passages from her literature assignments.

Like any friends we also had out own secret set of inside jokes and private rituals. This included phonetically writing out any Japanese word in English, referring to ourselves "Bot Hitches", and me smacking her ass till it felt like a pincushion for her.