pumpkin pie

adapted slightly from cook's illustrated

• 7 oz (1.25 c) flour
• 1 T  granulated sugar
• .5 t salt
• 3 T chilled shortening
• 4 T cold butter
• 5 T ice water

Make sure your environment is quite cool, about 70F
Process the dry ingredients in a food processor until combined.
Cut the shortening and butter into pieces (about a teaspoon each). Add the shortening to the processor and pulse until combined.
Scatter the butter into the processor and pulse until combined. Turn mixture into a medium bowl.
Sprinkle 4 T of the ice water into over the mixture, and fold and press with a rubber spatula to combine.
Add up to 5 T to bring the dough together, using your hands and kneading very sparingly to shape into a disk.
Wrap disk tightly in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to 2 days. Dough can also be frozen (thaw in the fridge for at least a day).
When the dough is ready to work, let it stand for a few minutes until malleable, then roll out to a 12-inch disk.
Transfer the dough to a 9-inch pie plate, trim to .5 in off the plate, fold and shape the fluting.
Refrigerate until firm, ~40 min, then freeze until cold, ~20min.
Heat the oven to 375F, line the crust completely with foil, and pour in pie weights.
Bake on the middle rack until the dough looks dry, ~25min. Remove the foil and weights.
Begin the filling when the pie goes in:

• 16 oz pumpkin puree
• 7 oz (1 c) brown sugar
• 2 t ground ginger
• 2 t ground cinnamon
• .5 t nutmeg
• .25 t cloves
• .5 t salt
• 2/3 c heavy cream
• 2/3 c milk
• 4 eggs

Combine the pumpkin, sugar, spices, and salt in a food processor or stand mixer
Transfer to a saucepan and bring to a sputtering simmer over medium-high heat. Cook about 5 minutes, then turn off the heat.
Remove the foil and weights from the shell and replace with a crust protector. Continue baking 5-6 minutes until lightly golden brown.
When the shell is done, put an oven rack in the lowest position, remove the other rack, and increase heat to 400F
Whisk the cream and milk into the pumpkin and bring to a bare simmer.
Whip the eggs in the processor or mixer until combined. With the motor running, pour the pumpkin in very carefully!
Immediately pour the filling into the pie shell, don't overfill. Excess can be ladled in after a few minutes in the oven.
Bake until the filling is puffed, dry-looking, and lightly cracked around the edges, and the center wiggles slightly when shaken, ~25min. Cool at least 1hr and serve at room temperature.

How to dye silk tulle from white to off-white

In the course of wedding planning we had a couple DIY projects--strategically chosen to save money but not drive us crazy. One of these was my veil. I wanted something very simple, but for which there were few tutorials online. Generally there are a ton of tutorials on veil-making, but nothing specific enough for me, so I read a whole bunch and adapted them to my purposes.

One issue was the fabric for my veil: silk tulle. I knew I didn't want nylon because that stuff does't do well over time: stiffening and yellowing, hard to iron, and impossible to clean. I would have liked to have worn or adapted my mom's veil, but it was unusable--I wanted something heirloom-quality. So I thought cotton tulle was the solution, but though it wasn't too expensive, it wasn't sheer enough (so people can see your face through it!). Fine, silk, even though it's super expensive.

I found a pretty good price on lovely silk tulle, but it was only available in a blinding white, which I wanted to tone down. I read about dying with tea, but every example I found turned out a product that was varying shades of brown--great for disappearing against skin. Still, all of them mentioned that if you wanted a lighter color, simply dye for less time. So I experimented until I got a finished product I'm happy with, a barely-perceptible toning down of bleached white silk tulle to off-white silk tulle.

Tea-dying is great for when you want a neutral off-white, rather than yellowy like ivory. I highly recommend it if you have a blush dress (mine is not). Here are a couple pictures of what I ended up with. I'm showing a swatch of the original tulle, a tea-dyed strip, and a swatch of ivory tulle (the ivory is a finer tulle that I'm showing for color comparison only). The first picture is just the three swatches and is the best color example, while the second shows them layered on the original to demonstrate how subtle the effect is.

The tulle I worked with was quite firm (as opposed to soft), but it took tea dye very nicely and evenly. You can get it here. Here is the protocol I worked out; I suggest testing it first on a swatch (a small corner of your fabric):

You will need:
- Two bags of black tea
- Two mugs
- A large stockpot
- Plenty of water
- Large measuring cup, or gallon jug
- Timer
- Filed fingernails, no rings
- whatever else you like to drink with tea--sugar, lemon, etc

1. Boil enough water for two cups of tea. Drop a bag of black tea in each mug, and pour the boiling water over each bag--leave about a half-inch of room at the top. Steep for four minutes.

2. While your tea steeps, pour a gallon of room-temperature water into your stockpot, and rinse your swatch under the tap. When the timer is up, remove the tea bags from both mugs, and pour one of the mugs into the pot. Stir until the tea is distributed--you should be able to see the bottom of the pot clearly, but the water will be a medium brown (think Snooki) at room temperature.

3. Put your swatch in the pot for four and a half minutes, agitating gently by hand about once every minute to make sure all the fabric is evenly exposed to the dye. Prep your other mug for drinking.

4. When the time is up, and while your tea cools, remove the swatch from the pot and rinse thoroughly in room-temperature water. Lay your swatch on a flat surface to air-dry, spreading the tulle out so the little holes are circular rather than oval.

5. Assess your color when the swatch is completely dry. If you want to go darker, wet the tulle again before putting it back in the pot, and repeat step 4 as needed (let sit one minute each time). Keep track of the total amount of time the swatch is in the dye.

6. When you have a good color, subtract 30 seconds from your total dye time. Wet the rest of your tulle and repeat steps 3-5 with all your fabric--your initial dye time should be what you just calculated. Drink your tea to calm yourself...it'll look great, don't worry!

Be very careful with the drying process: you want each hole to be about evenly sized, though the center holes will be better than the ones at the edges. If you don't get an evenly-dried product, you can re-wet and -dry, but it's a pain. The swatch will be good practice.

If the neutral color is not what you want, experiment with different additives: green tea, coffee, saffron, etc. Some dyes may need a fixative, like salt or vinegar (now I'm hungry for chips!). You can use salt with tea to get an extra-dark color also.

hosting

I had a lot of fun at our holiday party this year. Generally it's Lindsay's party, but she was generous enough to share the title with Diane and me this year.

Despite having hardly any idea of who was coming (facebook replies were scarce), we ended up having just the right amount of space and just the right amount of food and drink. Possibly too much of drink, really, but there's always the next party to fuel.

I was so happy to see everyone who came, and especially grateful to those who took such time and trouble to get here. With so many people around, we didn't get the time together I wanted, but something is better than nothing, and at least there's the promise of more one-on-one in the near future.

These winter holidays are my favorite time, Thanksgiving turkey to Hanukkah latkes to Mom's birthday cake to Christmas stew, pudding, and steak to New Years cocktails.  Hmmm, maybe it's actually all about the food.

NSF fellowship

Panicking about the NSF fellowship I just applied for. Only 1/4 recommenders have submitted their letter for me, I'm not getting a response from any of the other recommenders to the reminder I sent before Thanksgiving ... and the letters are due tomorrow, no exceptions, no mercy.

I started out not very interested in the fellowship but after all the work I've put into it, I really want the application to be complete at least! If I don't get the fellowship, fine, but it feels bad that these writers (2 of which have written me a recommendation recently!) may let me down at the application stage.

Any suggestions on how to prod people long-distance on a quite urgent matter?

moving

We're moving again. I'll be in a 5-year program at Columbia, so hopefully this time we'll manage to stay in one spot for at least 2 years in a row. That's not something I've experienced for seven eight years -- since I left for college. Every year (or even more often) brought a new dorm in college. Then, after graduating, there were 15 months in Houston, 12 in Plainsboro, 11 in Princeton, and now wrapping up 12 in Chapel Hill.

We've found a place in Jersey City to rent for 12 months, which we'll probably renew for another 12, or possibly look to buy a place. I really like it, and I'm looking forward to living there. I think I'll even change the address on my bank accounts -- it's been my parents' address all this time.

We're moving up in a 2-door hatchback. And so we're trying to get rid of nearly everything we own. We didn't collect much down here, but there's all the furniture we bought (sofa, bed, dining set, coffee table, bookshelves), plus odds and ends we've found we don't need (knife set, bookends, clothes). We'll give away the extra paper towels and laundry detergent that doesn't fit in the car. In the next week I'll have hopefully sold my car, at which point we'll be a 1-car household. Big changes, but our lifestyle will also be quite different in the city.

Come visit us, if you're in the area. We'll have a guest bed and an awesome kitchen.

This move that'll have us more settled is just one sign of the times to come. So many friends are getting married right now. The process of growing up is accelerating! Soon it'll be babies, and even that is close on the horizon. Exciting times, folks!