To try to love it

Any generic article on weight loss sings the praises of whole grains, lean proteins, leafy greens, and the standard-issue indulgences of dark chocolate and red wine (in proper portions and in moderation, of course). It preaches the usual health virtues: take a walk, take the stairs, get off the couch and to the gym. Keep track of what you eat. Get enough sleep, but don't sleep in. Drink water. Drink more water.

Most women (and plenty of men) I know could spout off these commandments as mindlessly as the alphabet, knowing as always that while they're easily said, the doing is just as easily interrupted by, you know, wanting to enjoy life - a life with whiskey, and lots and lots of cheese.

I try to do these things because, while they're not exactly fun, they're common sense. Who wouldn't want to look and feel like these girls? I'm lucky to live in a city where I can and do walk virtually everywhere. I enjoy running when I hit my stride, and like to participate in a handful of 5K events each year (never mind that many of the registration fees include a free beer from a beer garden at the finish line). I LOVE fruit - I can put away a pound of strawberries and twice the watermelon in 5 minutes, and don't even get me started on blueberries - and in keeping a predominantly vegetarian diet (the fancy term I suppose applies is 'flexitarian'), I do pretty well keeping healthy.

But then there's the Great Scale Debate. The rule used to be Weigh Yourself Once A Week: the same day, the same time, to the same degree of naked, and - let's be honest - preferably after you poop (WHAT, EVERYONE DOES IT, didn't your parents have you read that book?) Over the last few years, in the gradual, glorious shift of the general diet-culture focus from wanting to be skinny to wanting to be healthy, the rule has shifted as well. Sure, go ahead and continue to weigh yourself once a week to keep an eye on things if you must, but maybe try this instead: Don't Weigh Yourself. Pay attention to how you feel. How are your clothes fitting? How is your energy level? Instead of using an ever-fluctuating number to indicate your health, just Don't Weigh Yourself.

Ah. My stumbling block. I've fallen victim to scale-driven negativity time and time again, sometimes obsessively stepping on what I've un-affectionately deemed the 'fate plate' every single morning, getting a gambler's rush waiting for the flashing zeroes to show its hand while holding my breath and pointlessly sucking in my stomach. Even if I wake up feeling Okay, a number pops up higher than whatever arbitrary limit I've set and I let it ruin my day. I let some fickle digits determine my attitude toward food as the enemy, and even worse, I allow myself to rely on a crappy instrument to determine my self-worth, even though I know better. That is seriously pathetic, seriously unacceptable, and seriously effed-up.

So I gave Don't Weigh Yourself a chance. After roughly 3-4 months resisting/avoiding/hiding the scale - just listening to my body and guiding myself by the fit of my most unforgiving jeans - I weighed myself this week. I lost 10 pounds.

You've got to be freaking kidding me. I'm only 5 pounds above my self-defined 'ideal weight' at 5'3 (my healthiest during and after college) by the method of what feels like doing nothing? I'm still baffled and suspicious. I even waited a day and weighed myself again just to reassure myself that my scale wasn't broken. Turns out, what was broken was my body image. Stupidly, the months on my break from scale addiction up to that weird, exhilarating moment of tile-floored truth, I'd been feeling kind of heavy, crappy, and unattractive. I honestly still kind of do, maybe because I've simply gotten used to the feeling, accepting 'Not Gross' as my baseline judgment of decency in the mirror. My head is still screwed up, but for once I'm starting to believe myself when I think I'm looking and feeling fine.

I've been lucky to never have been significantly overweight - indeed, there have been times I've been underweight, usually when depression takes the reins and disordered eating happens (although I'm not sure I know what 'normal' eating is, come to think of it - it's different for everyone, but still, what does it even mean, 'normal' eating?). However, thanks largely in part to perfectionism, neuroticism, and a generous helping of ever-wavering self-esteem, I've definitely struggled with weight. It's not fair of me to put my own difficulties in the same category as those who battle more than the measly 15 pounds I'd gained in the last year or so, and under much more challenging circumstances - I have no children to raise, no culturally-encouraged dependency on fast food. But I still call mine a 'struggle' because I do struggle - I have constant company in the form of a thin, toned, kale-munching angel on one shoulder and a chubby, greasy-fingered, and many-chinned devil on the other. I struggle to make the right choices in the face of much tastier ones. I struggle with the fact that I'm not perfect, inside or out, and that it's okay, and no one else really cares - they're too busy worrying about their own problems to pay attention to my defects.

Nobody checking my ID is going to note or give a flying donkey if the weight listed on the license doesn't quite match the weight of the flesh-and-blood version; my favorite bartender at my neighborhood bar isn't going to refuse to serve me my beer and quinoa nuggets because I ate half a large pizza two nights earlier. I have to learn that it's okay to scarf down delicious kale chips and equally-delicious oreos in the same day without having a body-identity crisis. I'm ashamed to admit that I spend more time thinking about my weight and body than is productive or healthy. It is always, always a factor - even if I manage to ignore the shoulder-angel during a gluttonous, margarita-fueled Mexican buffet, she'll sneak back into my conscience an hour later as I realize how much I ate and am horrified for days.

I will probably always struggle a little - to accept and be grateful for my body and all it can do, to try to love it. Adam, my boyfriend of unfathomable patience and the endearing/frustrating audacity to love my flaws for 6 years (!) come August, tells me I'm beautiful and means it. He's an intelligent dude, and while not entirely objective in this case, he's unfailingly honest; I do my best - in love and sanity - to listen.

Food happens, and I'm going to enjoy it. And I'm going to get better about enjoying myself - off the scale.

Spring Twitterpation

I'm sorry guys. I'm woefully behind on posting, and my excuse is... well, I don't know if it's ultimately good or bad. For now, It Is What It Is. And you can probably figure it out from the new addition to the sidebar of THIS. VERY. BLOG.

I've joined the ranks of the Twitter legion.

#THEGOOD

 > I'm now much more easily and readily connected to my friends (and famous-people-I-idolize) in real-time than before (and hey! there's actually an infinitesimal chance that famous-idol may actually read what I write! and write back! and we'll become best friends forever and eat cheese together on famous-friend dates!). 

> Twitter totally satisfies and legitimizes what would otherwise be construed as stalking. (Sorry, Jon Benjamin*).

> Tweets force me to practice self-editing and brevity. 140 characters is not a lot, buddies.

> Facebook still has its charms, but there's something to be said for low-commitment one-liners that might (read: would definitely) be unappreciated cluttering up the newsfeeds of my parents' neighbors and high school acquaintances. 

> Twitter is rather an audience-appropriate vehicle for my in(s)ane one-off thoughts and horrible jokes that occur to me on an at least hourly basis. I share because I care. But I don't expect all my friends to care, and that's okay on Twitter more than anywhere else in my interwebs presence.

Because I would never abuse my dear, delicate blog readers to that.

Because I am a professional.

Obviously.


#THEBAD

> I feel incredibly self-serving and self-indulgent sometimes believing my Twitter friends might actually give a flying corgi-butt about something I thought was funny. Because that would mean I think I'm funny. Which is a stretch on good days, and ironically funny on bad ones.

> I definitely did not need another black hole in which my attention can easily fall and break its legs and turn me into a distracted mental-paraplegic.
> I am bad at hashtags. I didn't need another things to be bad at. I usually just try to turn any hashtags I use into a bad pun or clever little punchline to the tweet it follows. Please just consider them little winks or sheepish apologies.

> Socially-acceptable stalking of Jon Benjamin (again, I'm so, so sorry about the harassment, Mr. Benjamin. But I'm not making any promises to stop).

I realize I'm beyond fashionably late to this party. So late that I'm just showing up with a tray of cookies as the pools of vomit I'm stepping over to join the fun are already drying on the sidewalk and the walkers-of-shame have managed to stumble halfway home, barefoot and mascara-smudged, with their heels in their hands.  But I think cookies are always welcome. Even for breakfast when hungover from online information overload.

Better late than never, right?


*I have an amazing story involving me actually meeting Jon Benjamin this weekend at his Seattle show. I'm still giddy and reeling from the encounter, so I need to let it settle before I try to coherently tell it here. But next time, friends.

I've heard in the spring we'll live again

Spring has been winking at me for a month.

I've been winking back.

Daffodils defy sidewalks and tulips politely smile at each morning's sleep-drunk pageant of shivering dogs and damp coat hems.

Plum and pear tree blossoms blush at their own audacity and laugh pinkly down with the rain onto the concrete cold of a city still yawning in its winter bed.

Evening masquerades as Afternoon with the idle sun forgetting its appointments.

A crush of petals paste over windows like rice clinging to a bridal veil - the promise of a honeymoon on the steps of a stone-gray church.

The smell of new grass mixes with soursweet cedar.

Warm shoulders and numb toes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My neighborhood farmer's market re-opens soon. I'm itching to wander vendor to vendor, fruit stand to flower stall, to have happy Sunday mornings saturated with tastes and colors as fresh and familiar as summer rain.

In the meantime, la nouvelle saison has inspired an Art Nouveau kick; the rapture and beauty found in the blend of women and nature have romanced me a bit (and have maybe made me a tad envious, as well). Alphonse Mucha's 1896 Season series (Spring, in particular) inspired a little seasonal drawing of my own.

Spring Girl

She looks happy, I think. Blissful, even. And that hair. 

Seattle is slow to thaw this year, but if I'm lucky - and if the weather obliges - I'll be sharing her spring joy soon enough.

Stack Phrases

Over the last few weeks, I've let the cracks in my psyche grow over with routine. I am nourished by good words, spoken and written and sung, and by good company. I tried to visually approximate how my days tend to stack up:

Eliot, stop looking so pleased with yourself. As soon as you open your eyes,

you're going to get distracted by a bird outside and flip the eff out.

Aside from my doodle-doing direly needing work and desperately needing a defined style... this is about right. Not necessarily in this order, but these are the devils, the details, of my days.

The irksome-but-painfully-loved Eliot.

The books.

The running and strengthening of my body.

The healthy food (so much fruit, you guys).

The less-healthy food (well, red wine has antioxidants, so all you free radicals can suck on that).

The tea, the coffee.

The doodling and sometimes-art.

The writing.

The music music music.

And The Future.

That Box O' Future weighs heavily, but Eliot's ears (and my shoulders) seem to be handling the load, more or less. I'm getting pretty interested in a few Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) programs, and depending on my state of mind, the prospects are either a balm or a briarpatch in my little crisis. A crisis which, at 25, I'm learning to accept as acceptable.

The cracks are still there, of course - tiny fissures and fine lines in the underbrush - but I feel comfortably me again, and that's a lovely thing.

I'm warming up, just in time for Spring.

I Do the Best Imitation of Myself

The crickets have been chirping on this blog for almost 2 months. If you're one of the handful of my readers - whom I really (truly!) appreciate - I am dreadfully sorry for the lull and I am even the more smitten with you for still clicking over to this vomit-bucket of internet words from time to time. Fortunately, there was no good reason for the disappearance, and unfortunately, as well.

I was diagnosed with depression and and anxiety a little over 4 years ago, although I suppose I've known and avoided admitting it well before I finally broke down in a doctor's office in a strange torrent of relief and fear. I have not advertised this widely - many friends and family members who have known me for years and sometimes lifetimes don't know - so this is about as close as I could come to broadcasting such an intimate personal fissure. I still think of myself as a generally happy person, and if not happy, I am for sure at least unfailingly silly, which is close enough to happy most days. As it is, sometimes I wake up and the silly stays asleep, and I can't bring myself to want anything more than to get back under the covers to hide and spend the hours in stillness. When I can't do that or I find the strength to refuse to do it, I draw on Ben Folds and do the best imitation of myself. (I'm apparently pretty good at it, and I hate that it sounds so deceitful. I promise it's less to do being deceitful and all to do with trying to resemble a functioning member of society.)

Contrary to how it's usually portrayed in terribly melodramatic antidepressant commercials, I don't actually mope around in a sagging robe, forlornly staring out the window. There is some moping, but there's also a lot of numb paralysis punctuated by anger and frustration, flailing and fear, tears and hyperventilation. As Jemaine's character explains in Eagle vs. Shark, "It makes me pretty intense" and makes you punch innocent cake boxes (and if you haven't seen it and know Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords, see it already!). Practically speaking, there is perfunctory grocery shopping and productivity, there are breaths of fresh air in the form of casual drinks or dinner with understanding friends when I can summon the courage and calmness to enjoy being social. There is preoccupation with the inevitability that Eliot will die one day* as I watch him sleep in my lap, wonderfully stupid to it all, which then extends into selfish preoccupation with my own mortality and such questions as what the hell am I doing? What the hell are we all doing?

I tried Lexapro for the better part of a year, but the sad numbness it was supposed to ease just blanched my world of any color at all. Before, if my depression relaxed its grip for a few hours or even days or weeks, true responses to life would stir inside me - I could laugh easily, and I could stand in the Seattle sun and actually feel the warmth spreading on my skin, and gladly internalize the glow. Medicated, I wouldn't feel sad, sure, but I wouldn't feel anything else, either - I couldn't. I simply couldn't care about anything. The bad bouts were gone, but so were the glimpses of joy I savored when I could force myself to recognize them. I wouldn't notice at the daffodils yawning into life along thawing sidewalks as winter began to shed its barren coat. My creativity withered. Adam would sneak up behind me while I did dishes and kiss that spot only he knows on the back of my neck and my insides didn't involuntarily dissolve into wobbly bits - the instinctual melt never came, and I couldn't even will it to happen as I stared blankly at my soapy hands, waiting. And that was the worst. So I told Lexapro to shove it in 2009 and haven't looked back, and instead I now have some just-in-case-I-start-to-lose-my-shit pills for the anxiety (and, of course, a semicolon). They help me even if I don't take them; just knowing they're within reach can be a balm when I start to spiral. I see that Prescription Bottle Orange (there must be a crayon with that name somewhere) and it's all:

Hey, good buddy. You know, I bet you'd feel a whole bunch better if you started breathing. Now, I don't have lungs, so I can't say from experience, but I hear it's pret-ty nice. Go ahead, grab ahold of some of that sweet sweet oxygen with your mouth parts and if you have a hard time getting the hang of it, I'll be right here to give you a hand. See? Look at you, breathing like a pro. Don't you look pretty as a peach with a little blood circulating back into your face?

(My bottle sounds a lot like Kenneth Parcell from '30 Rock' coaxing a cat down from a roof.)

Anyway, coming out about depression is a scary thing, but maybe less scary than, say, ghosts or bad grammar (and definitely less scary than ghosts with bad grammar). It is less scary thanks to people who capture how it feels so perfectly, like Jenny Lawson, one of my loudly-sung heroes better known as The Bloggess, and Allie of Hyperbole and a Half, both of whom write words echoed in my own heart and elevated to a glory unbeknownst to my own feeble attempts. Until recently, the mind-fog was heavy, and that heart seized up like in my chest cavity like a stapler in Jell-O. I've been doing the best imitation of myself that I can - that alone is hard. Expressing myself at all is harder, and writing here feels like T-Rex trying to change the batteries in his smoke detector. So here I am writing, and that must mean something.

This bout of depression has to be one of the worst I've ever experienced. It came from nowhere and came at me roaring, so these past several weeks have been a very long, quiet slouch toward myself again. I am lucky; I have an incredible support system for which I am grovellingly grateful and without which I'd be in trouble. Adam is a saint and his unending supply of love and patience astounds me. But I feel like my tiny rebellion has begun because I feel. My laughs aren't hollow and I've left the apartment (the fact that my unemployment enables me to wallow in sweatpants and Downton Abbey is a mixed blessing). Kristen Bell's love for sloths killed me a few times over. I am meekly playing my guitar and finding my voice again for the first time in a very long while and am embracing the callouses and vocal strain every day. I am taking inspiration from Killian and blasting what I call "happy-yelling songs" in my headphones - mostly from the likes of The Mountain Goats, Cloud Cult, Frightened Rabbit, Andrew Jackson Jihad, and Matt Pond PA - and while the lyrics may be heart-wrenching, they're determined, and damn it, we're going to dance. Screw you, depression. Suck it, anxiety. I'm taking a holiday, and don't expect any postcards. I will be furiously happy whether you like it or not.

*In the midst of this craphole of a time, my dog passed away. I meant to make this tribue its own separate post, but here it is:

His hearing may have weakened, but his ears never stopped loving rubs. His muscles withered and his eyes clouded, but he would always light up and struggle to his feet to greet a friend. He aged happily, even when he lost his tail and couldn’t wag more than the nub to show it. He grew so tired, but never unwilling. He hated being apart from his humans – even if we were just in the next room – and now we will always hate being apart from him. Over the years of college and after moving to Seattle, I only saw him intermittently, which made each progressive glimpse of his condition appear that much worse. But he never forgot me, and I’ll never forget him. I love you, Riley; you’ll always be my good boy.

**I am in love with this drawing of one of my favorite characters in literature - the fox from The Little Prince. Perfect.

Better

Happy New Year! What did you fail to achieve last year?

That's my sour interpretation of the inevitable inquiry about my New Year's resolutions. While that may sound a bit cranky, it's just the way I've been conditioned to think. It's an implication that we must be failing at something or at least be needing improvement in some way; otherwise, why would we annually renew our vows to change? So every New Year, we're always trying to be Better. But what's Better, exactly? It's usually just a stab in the dark on a sliding scale, but I suppose as long as we're all trying, as long as we're all aware of the choices we make, well - that's Better right there. (See? I'm not always such a cynic.) But since I opened the door... here's a small obligatory sampling of my resolutions for the next 12 months.

Make more eye contact.

Really, this is just a symptom of the underlying illness: low self-esteem. My insecurities keep me navel-gazing or admiring the floor under false pretenses. You often need to get to the root of a problem to solve it, but I've found in many instances dealing with my awkward self that sometimes, treating the symptoms first as a reverse-approach does tricky wonders. Forcing a smile on a shit day feels disingenuous at first, but after a while, that grimace begets a real grin (I guess there's some truth to the oft-irritating, annoyingly-optimistic saying 'fake it till you make it'). I hate that my lack of eye contact probably makes friends feel dismissed and strangers uncomfortable or suspicious, so no more of the ol' shifty eyes. I'm going to hold the gazes of those I hold dear, and I'll raise my peepers to match the practiced confidence of my firm handshake. And who knows? Maybe my secret brown freckle in my eye won't be so secret anymore, and more importantly, maybe I'll learn there's less judgment staring back than I fear. So here's looking at you, kid - literally.

Floss more.

I'm sorry. I know it's terrible, and I'm ashamed. It's not like I don't floss EVER; I do it in fits and starts because I'm supposedly an adult and I know better. But in the end, I always slack because the act of flossing just freaks me out. The feeling of string sawing up into my gums sends the same shiver through my body as touching my eyeball once did. But I got over touching my eyeball out of the desire to wear contacts (or rather, the stronger desire to not wear glasses), so I know I can get over the flossy feeling, too. But seriously, eyeball-touching is still gross so please don't touch yours in front of me or you'll make me shudder like a freshly-slammed door. The feeling of clean teeth squeaking under my tongue is much better than the feeling I get when I watch pinkish-brown swirl into the drain (and I won't even get into the health problems I'm tempting), so regular, twice-daily flossing it is.

Stop trying to be perfect every day, 100% of the time forever.

Who am I kidding? Turns out the world won't end if I hork down that piece of chocolate I shouldn't have or skip a run in favor of a read - I'll leave doomsday to the Maya, Harold Camping, and Elvis Perkins. But seriously, life is messy and I realize I should stop trying to clean it up or slap a shiny Ikea veneer over the rough spots; that's not my job, and it's not a winning battle. We all can't be the best writer, artist, lion-tamer, etc. But we all just have to do our best, and that's enough. It's not settling; it's accepting. And although this won't be easy, it'll be worth the patience I'll test. Part of this means I'm going to stop trying so hard - it's exhausting. My standards for myself are impossibly high and my ambitions too lofty, so I need to start assigning the same understanding and forgiveness to my own mistakes that I do to my loved ones'. Being me should be plenty, and if not, oh well. So if I disagree with you, I'll say something instead of mumbling something neutral in fear of losing favor - hopefully you'll still like me anyway. If I don't accomplish everything I wanted to in a day, so be it; tomorrow will have a to do. If I love someone or something, I'm going to sing praises loudly and often. If I kicked ass at something, to hell with modesty in fear of offending: I'm going to let myself be proud of myself - and if I just sort of nudged ass with my toe, I'll still high-five myself for taking aim and wearing the proper footwear.



Sure, there are the other things, the same old stale promises of getting back into my skinny jeans and running/writing/laughing more and dusting of my guitar and tackling all the books on the bookshelf. These will get their turns in due time. But those are more selfish than what I'm after, at least in the first few months of 2012. Well, the flossing might be selfish except in the case of smooches, but the other two will help me be less selfish in the long run. They'll ultimately lead to worrying less about me and other trivialities and more worth-while worrying about what matters: my relationships, feeling good, and the little world around little me.

On the other hand, maybe I should quit while I'm ahead: on my suddenly-more-populated run on January 1st, I spotted a corgi at 12:20pm (Come on. A corgi at 12:20 the first day of 2012! What a sign!). So maybe I should just resolve to get a corgi. What could be Better than that?

The Simple Scuffin

Simplicity is something I both appreciate and pursue. I envy the minimalist life, and am a light packer. If you've seen the way I dress, you know I will rarely be swayed from my basic uniform of jeans, beater tank, gray zip-up hoodie, and flip flops by anything other than weather or dress code. I'm not good with trends or fussy new styles; rather, they're not so good with me. I like my simple routines, and their familiarity keeps my life feeling orderly in a disorderly world.

In the kitchen, I get a bit bolder. I actually play a bit, although I still keep things relatively simple to let good food be treated with little flash and lots of love. I'm comfortable enough with flavors and ingredients' personalities that I will tweak and nudge and twist recipes, or not use one at all. Cooking is a merciful art in which mistakes are seldom, but if I make one, seldom does it hurt anything besides the chances that I'll go back for seconds.

Baking, on the other hand, is less forgiving and puts me right back in my orderly place. Recipes are followed to the letter as if I'm expecting a gold star from the teacher. I'll try new things, sure, but knowing I'm at the mercy of chemistry, I tend to bake with tradition over tricks. I always read the directions like a good girl, and I know what tastes good and go with it. And oh, the things that taste good. So good that when whatever I've baked is out of the oven, I hope someone is there to shame me out of stuffing the entire batch in my mouth like a squirrel on uppers.


With Irish Soda Bread, I'm about as purist as they come. Real, traditional soda bread has only four humble ingredients, and none of that silliness of sugar or caraway seeds. It's just flour, baking soda, buttermilk, and salt - that's it. I'll happily eat other versions because they can be incredibly yummy, but those are just gussied-up step-sisters to the soda bread Cinderella. Sure, she looked nice at the ball, but we all know she didn't need the fancy-schmance. She was just as lovely at home by the fire, and soda bread is no different.

Last week, I was feeling impulsive and daring and itched to do something a little crazy. I knew better than to dash out to chop off my hair or get another tattoo while my sanity took a holiday, so I holed myself up in the kitchen to gather my thoughts. When one of those thoughts found its way to the top of the heap, I felt a little mischief curl my grin. Even I wouldn't have imagined what happened.

I bastardized the hell out of soda bread.


I wanted something that would last longer than the usual loaf - unless it's eaten in a day, it dries out quickly once it's been sliced. I know! I thought. I'll make mini soda breads! Everything's cuter when tinier! Just look at tiny owls!

I wanted something a little more like a treat than everyday soda bread, maybe a little sweeter, a little meltier on the tongue. I'll add sugar! And BUTTER! Like a baby scone! I WILL HOLD BAKED AWESOME IN MY HAND AND IT WILL TASTE LIKE MAGIC!

Oh, my ancestors must have been rolling under the peat.

In less than 48 hours, I made 4 batches with little variation of what I came to call Irish Soda Bread Scuffins. They're sweeter like muffins and shaped like them (as I made them in a muffin pan, although I'm sure they'd be just as nice drop-biscuit style), but their texture isn't quite dense or muffinish enough to call them muffins proper. Smooshing cold butter into the flour - technically the technique is "rubbing in," but rubbing butter into anything just sounds dirty - made the texture closer to that of scones, but these definitely aren't your typical scone. And so, behold, the liger of baked goods, the tasty bee in my bonnet: the simple scuffin.


Baking can make some of us feel like we should swap our aprons for lab coats, but I promise that's not the case here. The recipe is quite flexible, so feel free to play around with the amounts of butter and sugar. You can even leave out the sugar all together if you want a more biscuit-y scuffin (a scuffit?). Maybe add cheese and herbs instead. But, sweet or savory, these are addictive little guys. I burned my tongue because I was too impatient to let them cool properly, practically using the muffin tin as a plate. Anyway, you might want to share these so you don't eat half the batch yourself... in 20 minutes. Not that I did that (twice).


Irish Soda Bread Scuffins

Your first batch might take about 10 minutes to come together if you're not too familiar with the rubbing process, but the more comfortable you are, the more quickly this recipe comes together.

3 cups all-purpose flour*
1/3 cup sugar**
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes***
1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 425°F and prepare a standard muffin tin by buttering the cups or using non-stick spray. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Rub the butter pieces into the flour mixture with clean fingers until the mixture looks coarse like breadcrumbs and any lumps are no bigger than a pea, as Molly says. (If you're adding anything special to the scuffins like spices or cheese or anything, go ahead and add them to the mixture now.)

Make a well in the center of the flour and pour the buttermilk into the well. Gently stir the flour into the buttermilk until all the buttermilk is absorbed and the flour is moist. Be careful not to over-mix so the scuffins don't turn out tough or too chewy. Form the mixture into a loose, slightly sticky ball with your hands like you're forming a loaf - if it's too sticky to work with, sprinkle a bit of flour onto your hands.

Pull off 12 equal pieces of the dough and place them into the cups of the muffin tin. If you want, you can cut a cross-shape into the tops with a knife like traditional loaves of soda bread, but if that's more work than you want to do, you can just not give a crap like I did after 2 batches and they'll taste just as lovely. You can also brush the tops with buttermilk to give them a bit of tanginess, with melted butter to make them extra melty (and make your eyes roll to the back of your head while you moan out loud alone in your apartment while leaning on the oven for support), or with egg whites to give them a glossy shine.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool in the tin for a few minutes before removing the scuffins to cool on a rack for a few minutes more. Eat with butter or jam, or coffee or beer. Or eat them straight from the tin, plain and compulsively, like I did.

Yield: 12 scuffins

*I used King Arthur white whole wheat flour 3 times out of 4 (I like a slightly heftier taste) so whole wheat flour works just fine.
**I used as little as 1/4 and as much as 1/2 a cup in different batches - it just depends on how sweet you'd like your scuffins.
***Again, you don't need to use all the butter - these taste just as good with half as much, just not as rich. Okay, just kidding, of course they taste better with full butter, but they're still yummy enough for me with less when I'm feeling a little diet guilt.