Get Sifted.

My take on funeral food, and other things that you eat to be less sad.

[siftedgoddess-blog]

3 min breakfast tacos

Cook a little bit of sausage. Add 2 eggs. Nuke a small potato (diced and seasoned) for 2 min. Warm 3 tortillas

Fin.

[siftedgoddess-blog]

A letter kindly imploring you to support local Asian businesses and grocery stores.

I am on a mad hunt for some flour. Nowhere is stocked. I put out a facebook post asking if anyone had a black market flour dealer and a pal from high school suggested checking my local Asian Market. I was kind of ashamed I hadn’t already. I live very close to OKC’s Asian District, which if you haven’t been, is fabulous. Before this COVID-19 shut down, Riley and I visited our favorite pho shops regularly, and we have found ourselves missing our favorite waitress, Kim, a lot these days, and also hurting for the fantastic owners of these joints as they deal with not only the economic impact of the shut down, but probably the racial impact as well. It is startling how our president and his pundits have chosen to turn this global health crisis into a point of justification for blatant racism and hate crimes towards our Asian communities. 

I popped into Super Cao Nguyen later that afternoon, and they didn’t have flour, but I was filled with that same feeling of excitement and respect for Asian cuisine and the people that keep that store so well stocked and clean. It is a playground of new food knowledge and tradition, and very affordable produce that the employees and owners at Super Cao take incredible pride in.

But, it wasn’t very busy. And that made me really sad because I worry that the fear mongering and hateful stereotypes we hear on Fox News is really impacting this community that has fed my family, and become my friends. I guess to some it doesn’t matter that Super Cao is the only store I’ve been in with plexi glass windows on the registers, employees in face masks, and gloves, and an extreme respect for the health and safety of others, and no price gauging. I felt safer there than I have at Target. 

I feel so out of place saying this, because none of what is happening hurts me, a financially comfortable white woman, and my hurt is totally irrelevant, but I am so sad. I can’t believe that we live in a world where folks are attacked because a country that they might have never been to, or aren’t from was the first epicenter of a disease that we in the US have now begun to experience (and handle with less tact and preparedness than any other country). And for folks that are from China, or have family there, or heritage there, to be punished for this health crisis and degraded, and attacked by strangers. It is a breathtaking example of how far we still have to go in learning how to treat others. 

Get to know the Asian communities near you. Dine with them. Shop with them. Patronize their businesses and leave fat tips. Leave this season of live in quarantine one day with a newfound respect for the Asian culture that we bastardize and stigmatize in this country. We are so lucky to have the privilege of our own whiteness.

[siftedgoddess-blog]

A homesick recipe.

If you have ever hung out with my dad’s family for any holiday, you’ve had our decades old family delicacy— cottage cheese strudel. It’s savory and delicious and makes me miss my grandma, who is hunkered down in Texas. Today I made it for the first time and I have to say, I don’t know how she gets the damn dough so thin, or how she gets it in her perfect jelly roll shape. My dad and I have asked her for years to show us how to make it, and she finally sent me the recipe.

FILLING:

A few cups of cottage cheese, drained if too liquid-y.

A handful of cheese

2 aigs

6 sliced green onion

S&P

DOUGH:

2 cups flour

Salt

3/4 water + more if too dry

4 Tbsp shortening

Preheat to 350.

Roll out dough on a patterned cloth until you can see the pattern through it

Brush on some oil and dump your filling

Use the cloth to roll into a log

Pop it in to the greased baking dish and make a jelly roll shape

Cook for an hour, lower to 325 and cook 2 more hours.

Serve hot or cold, the ends are the best part, and immediately be transported to thanksgiving day.

Wishing you cottage cheese and lots of Goggie hugs,

Olivia

[fullcravings]

Cranberry Orange Breakfast Scones

[fullcravings]

Lucky Charms Rice Krispie Treats

[siftedgoddess-blog]

We are on day 3 of social distancing. I’m working for home for now. The world has felt so heavy lately, with all of this covid-19 panic. It’s frightening and uncertain, and I am freaked out by it, in all honesty. It’s scary because of the people hurting, and the people scared, and scary because of those who are going without food, or reliable shelter in the midst of it all. 

A long time ago, I got really in to baking as a means of coping with my anxiety. My thing was making the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I’m by no means a clean cook, so after mixing it all together, and popping my creation in the oven, I’d be covered in flour, my sink would be full of dirty dishes, but I’d feel better. And then, when I got sad later, at least there would be treats. 

I find that the current circumstances we are in have found me in the same place. I’m going through bags of flour and sticks of butter rapidly. I ordered 4 new cook books and a zester. This morning I woke up craving my favorite breakfast from Hunny Bunny Biscuit Co in OKC, where we live. But because of social distancing, we had to forgo. In the beginning of our relationship, Riley and I ate breakfast there every Saturday morning, and we loved it so much that when we moved in together, finding a house one street over from our favorite biscuit joint was a huge plus. To us, and to me, biscuits are the ultimate comfort food, and we’ve made a lot of memories that involve a flaky buttermilk biscuit and some sausage gravy. 

So, I decided, that today can still be biscuit day. We made a run to the grocery store for a few essentials and biscuit making supplies. It was picked over and a little sad to see. No flour on the shelves. But, here we are, a few hours later. Warm biscuits, warm hearts. 

These biscuits are from Joanna Gaines’s Magnolia Table. I love this book, and I love Jojo’s love for salted butter. And I had a lot of fun making this biscuits...

Step 1. Learn how to sub self rising flour because the store is out of all flour. Step 2. Three sticks of butter. Step 3. Pet the cat. Step 4. Stop thinking about the uncertainty and fear and bake the biscuits. Step 5. Eat the biscuits. Pet the cat. The house smells like butter and clean laundry. It’s raining and we are luckier than most.

I know that the coming days and the state of the world is frightening right now. Take care of each other. Take care of the earth. We will be ok. Be well.

x’s, o’s, biscuits,

Olivia and Jasper the cat