Vegan Italian Apple Cake

Image courtesy of Chloe Coscarelli

Before I proceed to share my experience with the most epic apple cake of all time (vegan or otherwise), there are a few things you should know about me:

1. I do not cook or bake. Ever.
2. I'm vegetarian but have lately been experimenting with vegan alternatives to animal byproducts. It's been somewhat of a challenge, since I really love cheese and really hate soy. As for Daiya, I would rather eat nothing at all. Which brings me to point number 3...
3. I'm notoriously finicky when it comes to food. I'm basically a grown-up toddler.

Over the holidays, I was gifted a copy of Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen: 150 Pizzas, Pastas, Pestos, Risottos, & Lots of Creamy Italian Classics by Chloe Coscarelli. Since Italian is one type of food I actually do like (I'd even venture so far to say it's my favourite – hello creamy, cheesy goodness!), I was thrilled to bust out of the oven mitts for my first attempt at meal preparation (in several years) that did not involve Easy Mac or zapping something or other in the microwave. With visions of elaborate dinner parties dancing in my head, I locked down a date for "Rachel's Magical Vegan Italian Dinner" with the rest of my family, since I didn't feel confident enough to cook for my friends yet.

Like many of my passion projects, it turned out to be a major ordeal (which I will detail for you, dear readers, in a future post), but its one saving grace was this epic vegan Italian apple cake. For starters, it was a pinch to make, and I've never baked anything in my adult life save for pre-made cookie dough rolls. More importantly, however, it was so delicious that my carnivorous family completely demolished it from top to bottom. People even claimed seconds and thirds, which is a rarity in our house, as I'm the only one with a major sweet tooth.

Without further ado, here is the recipe for Chloe Coscarelli's divine vegan Italian apple cake:

Ingredients

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour*
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup canola oil
• ¼ cup water
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon white or apple cider vinegar
• 3 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
• Powdered sugar for serving

*For a gluten-free alternative, substitute gluten-free all-purpose flour plus ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum (page 257 from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen)

**Note: I did not use powdered sugar since I forgot to buy some when I decided to go ingredient shopping in the middle of a blizzard (but more on that later).
**Also: As per my mama's advice, I decided to peel the apples horizontally instead of vertically, which enabled me to get them cake-ready in about half the time.
**Lastly: Since this takes 45 minutes to bake, it's good to prepare the cake first before tackling other dishes (if you're preparing a multi-course dinner, that is). This little tidbit also comes from my mother, since I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to anything kitchen-related.

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round pan and line with parchment paper. Grease again.
2. In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk oil, water, vanilla, and vinegar. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a large spoon until just combined. Do not overmix. Batter will be very thick, but the apples will release moisture as they bake.  
3. Arrange some of the apples in a circular pattern to cover most of the bottom of the prepared cake pan. Then gently fold in the remaining apples into the batter. Spoon the bat- ter into the pan, being careful not to disrupt the apple pat- tern on the bottom. Use a spatula or your fingertips to pat it evenly into the pan. 
4. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the center is set and the cake is lightly browned on top. Rotate the cake halfway through baking time. 
5. Once cooled, run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake, and gently unmold so that the apple design is on top. Peel off the parchment paper. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Ta-da! (Mine admittedly looked more like a squashed sand castle than Chloe's, but it was so delicious that I baked two more by the time this post went "to print"!)

Buon appetito!

Je suis Charlie

In light of the tragic shooting at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris on Wednesday, I have decided to defer this week's scheduled post and instead share a few of the responses from cartoon artists around the world:

Illustration by David Pope

Illustration by Ruben L. Oppenheimer

Illustration by JM:o

We are with you Paris. Keep your pens handy and pencils sharpened.

UPDATE

It has come to my attention that famed French cartoonist Albert Uderzo has come out of retirement to pay tribute to the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting:

This gesture struck a particularly sentimental chord with me as I grew up reading the Asterix comics (in English translation, of course), which Uderzo created with writer René Goscinny. He said:

Charlie [Hebdo] and Asterix have nothing to do with each other obviously. I simply want to express my affection for those designers who have paid with their lives. Young designers are on hand now and I wish them courage.

My proposed response? Like Charlie Hebdo on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. If you're a francophone, subscribe to their weekly magazine and increase their global audience. Spread the work of their fallen artists, and the myriad of talented cartoonists who have responded to this attack on freedom of speech, freedom of ideas and freedom itself.

My deepest condolences to everyone who was affected by these unspeakable acts of cruelty, both the Charlie Hebdo massacre and related kosher supermarket shooting which followed two days later. Je suis Charlie. Je suis Juif.

Illustration courtesy of Charlie Hebdo

Why I'm Not Making a New Year's Resolution

Image by Tees in the Trap

I hate to brag, but this is the first year I haven't yet broken at least one of my resolutions. That's because I've decided not to make any. This was not a choice I came upon lightly: a typical "first born", I've always been extremely assertive with my goals. I also belong to a generation where, growing up, it was the norm to be told by our parents, teachers and feel-good 90's films that we can do anything. Launch into space. Become president. Go big or go home. For many Millenials, following this path to inevitable greatness meant going into debt to pay for college or university, only to find that their dream job (or in some cases, any job) they had been promised simply didn't exist. Others (myself included) suffered from the mentality of too many options: if we can, literally, do anything, what exactly do we do? And, if we discover as adults that we're actually error-prone humans – not these magical, supercharged snowflakes, like we were told all along – we often don't know how to handle it. Clinical depression and anxiety are now rampant among Millennials. And yet, like everyone else, on December 31, we vow that next year, things will be different.

We'll move out of parents' basements and into glittering condos. We'll land interesting, meaningful jobs with real pay, a fantastical work-life balance (there may even be napping pods and computers which automatically shut down every day at 5PM) and a whole slew of nearby takeout places for us to Yelp about on our hour and a half lunch breaks. We'll meet Benedict Cumberbatch on an elevator and he'll be so charmed by our quirky neuroses that he'll promptly break off his engagement to what's-her-face. We'll become best friends with Lena Dunham or Mindy Kaling or whoever. We'll cut out sugar, nicotine or gluten (possibly all three), swap out convenience stores for farmer's markets and toast our brand new graduate degrees with a glass of expensive wine like a goddamn adult. We'll join a gym and finally shed those pounds we've been packing from our late-night Netflix and nacho binges. We'll also gain 15,000 followers on Instagram, our blogs and vlogs will go viral and we'll become Internet celebrities. As our list grows longer and longer, we are convinced that over the course of the next 365 days, we will proceed to turn our entire life around and become one of those beaming, happy people we always see in our Facebook newsfeeds (even if they're on anti-depressants themselves).

Herein lies the problem, and not just for Millennials. In fact, I personally believe that the unbelievable pressure to always be bigger and better isn't a generational issue but rather a continental one, stemming from the starry-eyed immigrant mentality of the "American Dream" (though I should say "North American Dream", since it equally applies to Canada). F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

That was in 1925. The phrase Keeping up with the Joneses (no Kardashian relation) was invented even earlier, 1913 to be exact. Either could have just as easily been penned (or more likely, blogged) in the past five minutes, because in spite of the 20th century's unprecedented innovation and technological advancement, everyone is, deep down, still on Ellis Island, determinedly dreaming of the incredible future that awaits them, if they can overcome the hardship and challenges along the way. The only difference is – with my generation – it's taking a hell of a lot longer to reach said future, and when we fall short, it's often a total catastrophe.

There's another factor at play here, which is good ol' human psychology. No matter how desperately we desire change, it is still frightening to such a vast number of people, which is why – as Fitzgerald said – we are "borne back ceaselessly into the past". I'm by no means a psychologist but through my lifelong fascination and limited understanding of the field (not to mention my mini library of self-help books), have come to believe that we often fail to achieve our goals (and, by extension, New Year's resolutions) because of counter-intuitive and even self-destructive "speed bumps" we subconsciously erect to protect ourselves from change. Steve Denning, a contributor for Forbes, hit the nail on the head: "The New Year acts like a psychological reset button, tricking ourselves into thinking it will be different this time." But unless we are prepared to call interference on our change-resistant behaviour, another year will go by, and we'll be no closer to the future we aspire for.  Lifehacker published an excellent article probing possible causes and solutions to fear of change; Zen Habits and Psychology Today shared some wonderful insights as well. I thought I would add my own two cents to the discussion and share what I'll be doing instead of making grandiose resolutions this year.

The entire topic initially came about when I was speaking with my dad about the goals I had for the upcoming year. They didn't entail meeting Benedict Cumberbatch on an elevator but they were biggies nonetheless. Suddenly, he said to me, "Don't take on an entire year. Just focus on January. What are you going to do in January?" I was struck by this exceptionally wise yet very simple solution to the wheels churning in my head, attempting to process all these massive goals and questioning whether or not I could accomplish them over the next 365 days. Looking back to the positive changes I have managed to swing in the past, I recognized one common denominator: baby steps. Maybe it's because little changes are less scary than big ones, so there aren't as many psychological roadblocks standing in the way. Maybe we are more confident when tackling smaller tasks, with a lower risk of failure, and – through that confidence – enable our own success. Maybe Lao Tzu was right when he said "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Whatever the reason, I've decided that, in 2015, I am going to resist my generational programming to "think big" and instead "think small".

Happy New Year,
Rachel

Raise the Bar

Image by Kim Le

One thing I'd really love to do in 2015 is learn how to make a truly excellent cocktail. As such, I thought it'd be fitting to toast the new year with some mighty spectacular barware finds (if I do say so myself).

There is something just so nostalgic and charming about this beautiful wooden bar cart from Anthropologie ($498). Perfectly suited for a cozy cocktail corner, I imagine it being a place where sentimental libations are shaken and stirred among friends.

Decidedly more modern but no less fantastic is this brass bar cart from West Elm ($399). The clean lines are especially compatible with contemporary spaces, while double glass shelves provide ample space for all your spirit-ual needs.

My personal favourite of the bunch, this retro brass bar cart from Black Rooster Decor ($1039) is unabashedly glamourous, while the rounded handles and edges add some unexpected quirk and keep things from looking too boxy.

Interior design extraordinaire Jessica Waks of Style at Home and Jessica Claire's World – whose work I came to know through her awesome hubby, a long-time family friend – is always digging up the most delightful bits of design inspiration, such as these gorgeous gold-plated cocktail accessories from Cocktail Kingdom. I'm particularly in love with the Usagi Cobbler Shaker ($76.95).

Another goodie from Cocktail Kingdom, these gold-finished cocktail picks ($18.95) are just begging to be busted out at a swanky soiree. 

You can always bank on Kate Spade for whimsical, cheeky and completely fantastic party supplies! I'm especially partial to these gold foil confetti-flecked cocktail napkins ($14).

If you've stopped by Chaucer + Lily any number of times, you'll know I have a major weakness for black and white patterns. No wonder I fell for the Pierrepont Place 2-piece bar set from Kate Spade ($50).

Spartan Shop has recently become one of my favourite online spots to oggle oh-so-gorgeous homeware. I particularly adore this collection of brass bottle openers ($46) by Japanese designer Masonori Oji.

Another find from Spartan Shop, these bottle openers ($60) by Fort Standard check off two of my favourite design trends: brass and geometry.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely in love with these jaw-dropping bottle openers from Kelly Wearstler (left: Precision, $250; right: Bejeweled, $450).

Marc Blackwell's Northern/Southern Hemisphere glassware collection at Barneys is arguably one of the most spectacular I've ever seen (from $75).

These geo brass bottle stoppers from West Elm ($49) are sure to keep more than just the wine fresh with their bold, glamourous design.

Equally exceptional are these faceted glasses from Urban Outfitters ($34). If you can't already tell, I'm having great difficulty getting over my recent crush on gem-inspired design.

It seems that Moscow Mules have been all over the wedding and lifestyle blogs for the past couple years, and I'm definitely not complaining. The obligatory brass mug (which you can bag at Urban Outfitters for $20) makes this classic vodka-based cocktail an aesthetic delight. Besides, any libation that permits this home décor junkie to splurge on some shiny new barware is a definite must in my books.

This copper tumbler from Spartan Shop ($20) is Bohemian glamour at its finest. I want six or seven, like, now.

Williams-Sonoma has taken ordinary shot glasses to the next level with their striking copper edition ($9.95).

Entertaining before 5 PM? These S'well reusable water bottles ($35-45) from Anthropologie not only feature striking organic patterns, they also keep liquids cool for 24 hours (and warm for up to 12!)

It doesn't get more glamourous than Elizabeth Stone's agate coasters plated in 18K gold.

Bottoms up!