Cranberry Upside Down Cake

Each year, just before the turn of the new year, marks the anniversary of the day I quit graduate school in physics. Though it has only been three years, it feels like a lifetime ago. I feel so much older than that bright eyed girl with high hopes and soaring dreams. The hopes are no less great, but a touch of experience has tethered me a little closer to earth. I feel as if it is difficult to keep track of all the changes since then, all the emotions—positive and negative, exciting and disappointing—that I have passed through. I’m older. Not just three years, but what feels like a decade in life and stress and growing.

I’m not the same person I was then, but I wouldn’t want to change the person I’ve become.

The past year has been exhausting. I feel as if I have been running forward, so eager to get on my path, to find where I am supposed to be, that I’ve forgotten to stop and just breathe. I have been trying to do too much, a phrase which has become my unwanted motto for many, many months. Some lessons take longer to learn than others. Since I stopped baking professionally over a year ago, I went back to grad school for a masters in education, with the goal of becoming a high school physics teacher.

When I stopped pursuing physics, I swore up and down (and left and right) that I would never stray towards science again. I had convinced myself so thoroughly of this that I threw away every physics notebook I had kept all the way back to high school in a ceremonial sweep (a sin that I have since regretted).

In August, I took on my first teaching job—you can call me Ms. Rosenau now. Teaching for the first time is a whirlwind. I feel as if I should have been a little more forewarned of the adventure ahead. Teaching is more overwhelming and challenging than I could have imagined, consuming all of my time and energy to create entire curriculums from scratch. Teaching is also extraordinarily rewarding. There truly is never a dull moment when surrounded by 80 sixteen and seventeen year olds both eager to learn and hungry to distract.

If you had told me three years ago that this is where I would have ended up, I may have very well laughed in your face. Life, I found, keeps me on my toes. Once I am certain I have everything figured out, it throws another curve in my path and sends me in a new direction. Even so, right now this is where I feel like I am meant to be. I just hope that life waits a few more years before sending me around the next bend.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake is tart, textured, and colorful enough to impress your holiday guests. The cranberries are cooked on the stove until they "pop" and release their juices. Mixed with raspberries and a bit of orange zest, it forms the bottom (or "top") of the cake. A quick cake batter is mixed up, which is made with brown sugar and sliced almonds for a bit of texture and greater depth of flavor. The cake itself is on the tarter side, but will not make you wish for more sugar. Share with family and friends to bring out the holiday spirit.

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Honeyed Apricot Granola Bars

So much has happened since we last spoke that I wouldn't know where to begin. I feel as if more than a month has passed, as if I have aged half a dozen years in a few short weeks. Life is a mixture of exhaustion and transition right now, as I adjust to my new beginning. There have been so many changes to my daily life and I haven't had a moment to sort out my feelings about them. In many ways, it feels like I took off running and I am still trying to catch my breath.

Breath in. Breathe out. Breath in.

This evening, I'm sitting on a new couch in a new apartment, propping my feet up on a new coffee table. The space is smaller than before, built for only one, but somehow it suits me. The view from my window stands in contrast to the old, as different scenery from a different state looks in. I have unpacked my belongings, trying to fit the pieces of my old life into my new—a jigsaw puzzle of memories and unfamiliarity, as the two sets of pieces merge to form a completed image.

The final picture is just beginning to form, the edges in place, but the middle is still muddled, an unclear image of the final product.

I have been so caught up in these life adjustments, drained of thought or energy, that I haven't opened the oven door in over a month. It feels strange to have abandoned baking for so long, holding it so close to my heart as I do. During a morning rainstorm last weekend, I turned on the oven and tried to rekindle some of the familiarity I had lost in the move. I made granola, a simple comfort food with a touch of character.

The scent of granola wafted through the apartment, erasing the foreign scents and replacing them with something closer to home. For this, I was grateful.

Honeyed Apricot Granola Bars are filling and wholesome. Dried apricots are plumped up by soaking in black tea and are pureed to form the base of the bars. With honey for sweetness and nuts and dried fruit for interest, the chewy bars make a quick breakfast or snack complete. The bars bake up soft, but hold together well, cutting neatly into pieces.

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Cherry Almond Crumble

As I walked into my apartment late last night, kicking off my shoes and tossing my keys on the kitchen counter, I asked my boyfriend to step out on the balcony and smell the air. Though an odd request, he did as I asked, moving the window blinds aside and sliding the door open. After taking in several breaths of the air, he turned around to look at me with a puzzled expression across his face. It just smells like night, he said.

Exactly, I told him. It smells like night.

When dusk falls, the air takes on a new scent. While the aromas of the day are subdued, drowned out by heat and car exhaust, the disappearance of the sun pulls out the scents hidden deep within the earth. Night air has an undeniable sweetness, as if a thousand quiet flower blossoms are blooming at once. The smell is earthy, the dirt kicked up during the day finally settling back to solid ground. Once the humidity of the day begins to wane, the dampness of the air holds the aromas in place, helping them grow stronger as the dew settles onto the leaves in the trees.

When I walk through the grass, looking up at the starry sky above me, I wonder if the stars rain their own fragrance down from the heavens.

Growing up in a state marked by pastures and endless blue skies, the unique scent accompanying the night was something I took for granted. Perhaps it wasn't until that late night walk into my apartment that it dawned on me that it was something to appreciate. The light breeze keeps the aromas of night unspoiled—never to grow old, always to remain familiar. I wonder if the night carries its own scent elsewhere, in cities big and small. I wonder if it has the same sweetness, the same feeling of grass underneath your bare feet and dirt beneath your fingernails. I wonder if I am the lucky one.

As I sit out of my porch with twilight long past, the darkness of the sky pure and unyielding, I breath in the night and hold it in my lungs until my chest aches. I know I am the lucky one.

Cherry Almond Crumble has a flavor as pure as the night air. Dark sweet cherries are mixed with a little brown sugar and baked until bubbly and fragrant. A dough of cinnamon, oats, and almonds is sprinkled over the top and continues baking until golden. The fruit crumble allows the simplicity and sweetness of the fresh cherries to shine, the other components deepen and support the bright flavor. This crumble is a celebration of summer fruits and long summer nights.

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