Royal Wedding Breakfast

Wishing Jeeves were here to take charge.

Two days to go for Prince William and his bride-to-be, Kate, and the silver service isn't polished yet. Great Scot, that makes me a laggard!

On the up side of preparations for a Royal Breakfast at my friend Trish's castle, I've made a pastry cream and a Blackbird Bun (see above). This bread is my twist on Scotland's Black Bun from The Book of Bread by Judith & Evan Jones. I tip my fascinator to them (British term for fancy headpiece. Please see Ellen Christine Millinery, sharper than Jeeves himself, if you need hat guidance. Like her hats, Ellen stands above).

To celebrate the twining of new monarchs, Trish and I took repose at the nearby Cultured Cup tea shop to muse on our strategy for serving guests at 4 a.m. Dallas time. I had a lovely cup of tea whose name translates into "floral marriage," or something. We knew the dress for our event would be tiaras and pajamas, but what to serve?

Given the early call to the post of this blessed thing, we decided on an egg and sausage casserole of the type you make up well in advance and pop in the oven as Kate processes down the aisle. Bangers, beans and tomatoes would be on the plate if we were turning the castle into a pub, but for us, we'll go with strawberries and whipped cream (stand-in for clotted variety), Madeleines, lemon tea cake, rolls, fruits and an unusual item with ties to the French Pyrennes. Right ho, it's not Welsh, Scottish or remotely Irish, but I'm desperate to try this recipe from Bernard Clayton Jr.'s book The Breads of France and How to Bake Them in Your Own Kitchen.

He gives you the Gateau Basque - not a cake, bread or a pie, but something of all three. It makes up similar to a pie with top and bottom crust, and includes pastry cream and cherries. Brilliant!

Assorted jams will add the final touch of color and sweetness.  (Bless me, I forgot the flowers.)

God Save the Cream!

(Photo by John H. Ostdick for Singing Wheat Kitchen)

Imagining the best, and thinking of Spain

As I rolled along at the Home Slice Bakery in Dubois, Wyoming, a Frida Kahlo costume on my head and a glass of wine nearby, I never imagined the road ahead, what waited for me beyond the barn with the two black angus steers and the goat pen, beyond the bees in clover.

I thought I was in the mountains just to volunteer for a friend who's a devoted baker for her community, population less than a thousand. I could playfully channel Kahlo while rolling dough, or Julia with my nip of wine, but I never played "let's make believe you're a Le Cordon Bleu student." Never saw it coming, never sensed it. It was not up my sleeve or in my heart to do.

Then we came to the end, which is a title for a book about getting "freed up" in the ad agency world, which is just what happened to me when I came down off the mountain. Suddenly I had too much time and empty hands, but no more kitchen in the Grand Tetons. Before I could think it through, I enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Dallas as a baking and pastry student - because there was no one to stop me, not even myself. I knew if I thought too much about it, I'd talk myself out of it. Even the great Southern hospitality queen Paula Deen told me that it was "just courageous" to start on this journey (she meant at MY AGE), and she's right. She would know.

A year later, I have done the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the unbelievable leap into the unknown. This is bigger than Wyoming, bigger than baking school. I have applied for the BasqueStage Sammic Scholarship. Know what that is? A chance to work in the restaurant Martín Berasategui, which has three Michelin Stars, in the Basque region of Spain. A 6-month commitment, the chance of a lifetime you look for all your life.

Have I gone mad? (You might have thought so after seeing those Kahlo flowers on my head.) Surely it takes a special kind of imagination to see yourself living in Espana, taking direction in another language, soaking in the exquisite culture, cuisine and new life (at your age). What's more important even than applying for it, what I embrace, is discovering that when you toss your sombrero in a ring like this, you declare yourself to the world that you are a candidate - for whatever comes, whatever waits, wherever you go, and why.

I wish myself luck in this endeavor, I wish all the candidates the best - and there are some very good candidates. Everyone deserves the chance to stretch the imagination wider than the strudel dough, beyond where they thought they could go in one terrific leap of faith. We all deserve the right to believe in the outrageous behind every good fortune.

Saludos!

Inside Singing Wheat Kitchen

What does Singing Wheat Kitchen look like, the place where I hurl the flour, splash berry gelee on the floor and stir the pots till they splutter and hiss with promise? Singing Wheat is my kitchen, to be sure, with a sink and an old stove that barely qualify as equipment. It is a kitchen where anything happens, but it's something more.

Singing Wheat is a state of mind, not a workspace or horrors, a cubicle. It's a playroom and a tearoom like Nancy Drew used to visit when she was out chasing clues. You wouldn't think it a suitable space for a baking & patisserie student like I, not with those Persian rugs on the floor and a piano in the corner.

Singing Wheat used to be part of a garage, but we made it over. Notice the antique secretary with the blue-on-white plates? Gives the room a sense of timeless beauty. There are many oddities that find a place here. There are assorted leftovers of 1930s Fiesta ware, a non-singing cuckoo clock, a collection of cobalt blue glassware in a window, an antique turtle table with a marble top, which is where the bread dough hangs.

The family kitchen queens who came before me saved everything - assorted pitchers large and small, Depression era crockery, ice picks, silver service, even children's tea sets. There are white linens that make you think of The French Laundry. Crystal sherbet glassware. Candelabra. Tattered cookbooks. It's all here, with fresh flowers some days, and often, whacking good bread.

I go in there every day, but I'm never sure what will come out. Today it's a twist on herb bread, two twists, made with rosemary, thyme and basil from the garden. Tomorrow, maybe cream roses, or a fresh batch of diminutive madeleines. I never know, I just let the whim carry me off.

As I child I was given a chemistry set, now I have my own lab, a gentle place of aromas. Experiments. Poetic crusts. Drop in, we're always open on days ending in why.

(Photo by John H. Ostdick, Singing Wheat's Chef de Partie)