THANKFUL

This year I'm especially thankful for family and friends, whose phone calls, hugs, and cups of coffee are salt and light.

RECIPE: BROWN BUTTER SALTED HONEY PIESource: Kinfolk Magazine

Ingredients
For the crust
1/2 cup (115 grams) very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup (120 milliliters) ice water 
1 1/2 teaspoons (8 grams) white sugar
1 1/4 cups (160 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) salt
1 egg beaten with a splash of water for egg wash 

For the filling
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks / 170 grams) unsalted butter
3/4 cup (255 grams) honey (lavender or orange blossom are ideal)
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
2 tablespoons (15 grams) all-purpose flour 
3/4 teaspoon (4 grams) salt
1 tablespoon (15 milliliters) lemon juice 
5 large eggs
2 teaspoons (10 grams) pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste
1 cup (235 milliliters) heavy cream 
Flaky sea salt for topping 

Method
For the crust: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt. Sprinkle the cubed butter into the flour mixture, and using your hands or pastry blender, begin working the butter into the flour. Once the butter is a little bigger than pea-size pebbles, start drizzling in half of the water and incorporating it into the flour mixture with your hands or a spatula. Drizzle in more water 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together. Gently knead the dough on a lightly floured work surface and shape into a disk. Wrap the disk in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. When ready, roll the crust to 1/8-inch thickness and transfer to 10-inch pie pan and crimp. Cover with plastic wrap and let the piecrust chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 more hour. Just before filling, brush the entire crust with the egg wash.

For the filling: Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. The butter will start to simmer and foam. As the foam subsides, stir the butter constantly and watch for it to turn golden and then brown, about 10 minutes. Once it turns brown, quickly remove from heat, add the honey and stir until it dissolves. Let the mixture cool slightly, about 10 minutes.

Whisk together the sugar, flour and salt in a medium-size bowl. Stir in the brown butter, vanilla paste and lemon juice, and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition. Whisk in the heavy cream.

Pour the filling into the chilled piecrust. Bake the pie on the center rack in the oven for 60 to 75 minutes, rotating the pie halfway through baking. The pie is done when it turns deep golden brown on top. It should be puffed up and set around the edges but should still slightly jiggle in the center. Let rest at room temperature for at least 4 hours. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt.

ROAST POST: WATER AVENUE COFFEE COMPANY

Favorite Roast: No. 7 House Blend

While researching a blog post for work, I stumbled upon the happy fact that many of my favorite Portland, Oregon microroasters now ship their beans around the country. One of them is Water Avenue Coffee Company, whose neon-lit café and No. 7 House Blend I just discovered on my last visit to Portland (despite the fact that they've been creating handcrafted coffees since 2009). What impressed me most about Water Avenue wasn't just the vintage packaging and smooth flavor of my pour-over coffee, but the friendliness of the baristas—not in a bubbly, green-aproned way, but showing genuine interest in human beings as well as hand-brewed coffees.

In writing-related news, be sure to check out my predictions for "China's Next 10 Years" in terms of business and development for October's Global Traveler.

Photos by Joe Voigts  

HUZZAH!

Just popping in to share a few links from around the web, along with this photo of a satisfied goat that I met at the Sandwich Fair (named for the city of Sandwich, not because the fair celebrates sandwiches) a couple weeks ago...

In the July issue of Global Traveler magazine, I shared the latest on Beijing's air pollution problems and what the city is doing (and not doing) to clean up its act.

The August issue of Global Traveler included my first spa review, in which I tried something dubbed the "Experience Shower." Just figuring out how to turn it on was an experience.

I'm excited to be joining a group of creative Portlanders in creating a coffee table book about Guatemala missions! The book will be modeled on Brother/Sister, a collection of stories about hope and transformation in Southeast Asia created by some very talented friends. Our team will be heading to Guatemala for a week in February to collect interviews and photographs.

If you read Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, check out Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's new book A Path Appears. Kristof will be speaking about international development with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on October 15 at the InterContinental Chicago. Details are here.

THE PERSEIDS

Once a year, the earth passes through a debris field left behind by the Swift-Tuttle comet. Enormous pieces of grit slam into our atmosphere at 130,000 miles per hour, light up the night sky, and flare out in seconds. Apparently, when the comet's predicted orbit near the sun was off by 17 days in 1992, there was some concern that it might come dangerously close to the earth or moon on its next passage in 2126. Frightening how cameras and telescopes (or photographing through a telescope, which is how I captured the image above) can mislead as they magnify, transforming speeding bullets into baubles.

I like how Annie Dillard put it in her essay on experiencing a solar eclipse: "The lenses of telescopes and cameras can no more cover the breadth and scale of the visual array than language can cover the breadth and simultaneity of internal experience. Lenses enlarge the sight, omit its context, and make of it a pretty and sensible picture, like something on a Christmas card. I assure you, if you send any shepherds a Christmas card on which is printed a three-by-three photograph of the angel of the Lord, the glory of the Lord, and a multitude of the heavenly host, they will not be sore afraid. More fearsome things can come in envelopes."

CITY OF ANGELS

Photo by Ashleigh Bateman 

The first time I visited Los Angeles, I considered it divine intervention. I was 10 years old, and, like any 10-year-old in 1994, my life revolved around watching Jurassic Park on VHS at least once a day. I dreamed about Isla Nublar. I wrote Jurassic Park fan fiction. And then, one day, I won a trip to Universal Studios for the opening of the Jurassic Park ride (divine intervention, I think, but also the result of taping “Xena: Warrior Princess,” waiting for a code word to flash on screen, and depositing said code word in a ballot box at a local fried chicken joint).

The magic hasn’t worn off. Whenever I go to Los Angeles, I’m still just as enchanted as the weekend when I faced down a T-Rex eight times in a row. Whether it’s the moongazing at Griffith Observatory, the hike to the Hollywood sign, or surfing at Huntington Beach Pier, the city always feels like a new adventure to me.

LOGAN SQUARE FARMER'S MARKET

Just dropping in to share a few images from my neighborhood farmer's market. I can't believe my good fortune in having moved to Logan Square, whose summertime loveliness almost rivals Southeast Portland's. Right now the Sunday farmer's market is bursting with peonies, Michigan strawberries, and radishes. When I go running through the park in the evenings, it seems as though the whole neighborhood is outside soaking in the summer: quasi-gypsies selling their clothing from blankets, Puerto Rican grandpas chatting on park benches, and slackliners practicing their tightrope act between the trees. Best of all are the lightning bugs, which I'm just now seeing for the first time. Who would have thought you could go 29 years without encountering a lightning bug, only to discover them in the middle of Chicago?

BEHIND THE SCENES IN HSIPAW

If you saw my essay for The Christian Science Monitor a couple weeks ago, you know about my serendipitous encounter with a Burmese bookshop owner in Myanmar's Shan State. But what I didn't share in the article—both to protect the bookseller's identity and for lack of space—is this man's fearless crusade for education in the impoverished countryside.

When we asked if there was anything we could do to assist him, he immediately set to action. With the equivalent of $50, we walked to the market and selected hundreds of school notebooks, pencils, erasers, and pens. It wasn't the first time he had gotten foreigners involved in delivering school supplies, and for this the government had forbidden him to travel outside of town. "But I know how to avoid the checkpoints," he said with a grin.

The next morning we met him and a friend and, with the enormous stacks of notebooks balanced precipitously on their motorbikes, set off around the countryside. We sped along the main road lined with prehistoric-looking shade trees—planted by the former prince of Shan State, he merrily called out—before bouncing our way through the rice paddies to one-room schoolhouses.

Eight elementary schools, two rainstorms, and one flat tire later, we had dispensed of all our supplies. Over curries and flatbread—which our new friend insisted on buying—he rhapsodized over War and Peace. "The way that Natasha and Nicholas grow from children into adults, oh, it is a very good book! My granddaughter is in the seventh grade, and she can't even recite her ABCs. How is she going to read Tolstoy with this kind of education?"

BOSTON IN BLOOM

"Whether it is that the faith which creates has dried up in me, or that reality takes shape in memory alone, the flowers I am shown today for the first time do not seem to me to be real flowers." - Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

Some people disparage the smell of "beauty bark," but to me a whiff of mulch is the olfactory equivalent to Proust's tea-soaked madeleine. It summons spring, which in Boston is a surreal explosion of prim whites and dusky pinks. The trees on Commonwealth Avenue fuzz over with apple blossoms, pear blossoms, and magnolia, their petals a collective blur that resembles cotton candy.

Even better are the too-short weeks when the tulips bloom, and the Public Gardens become a riot of fire-engine red, canary yellow, and purple shot through with gold. The best way to experience springtime in Beantown is with lunch at one of Newbury Street's many outdoor patios (I'm a fan of Scoozi), followed by a slow amble down Comm Ave, Marlborough Street, or Beacon Street all the way to Boston Common.

And if you happen to be headed to Sydney, another city steeped in color (mostly shades of blue), be sure to check out my business traveler's guide in this month's issue of Global Traveler Magazine.

A SPACIOUS PLACE

I used to hate Oklahoma's featureless spaces, to find the empty landscape almost maddening. But now that I've lived in a place so choked with concrete apartment towers that I couldn't even glimpse a patch of sky, a place so dark and dank that mold was sprouting from the walls, something about the expansive emptiness of the Oklahoma horizon seems consoling. It reminds me of this verse from Psalm 18: He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Oh, and the elegant creatures above? They live at Silver Wind Stables, a little piece of equine paradise owned by my friend Ashley. Look it up if you're ever in town; there's nothing quite as comforting as a horse's muzzle.

FAREWELL, ASIA!

After two and a half years, we're saying goodbye to Asia for the second time (the first was when we left China in 2008). We've had some wonderful experiences: meeting the courageous women at Remember Nhu; cozying up to Japan's famous snow monkeys; setting foot, albeit briefly, in North Korea. And some terrible ones: living above a karaoke bar; accidentally imbibing "cat poop coffee"; seeing the garbage-strewn state of once-beautiful Bali.

And while I'm sure we'll return—Japan's charms are too alluring to resist—I'm excited to see at last what's in store on other continents. Starting in February, we'll be volunteering at Unidad Academica Campesina, a college for the rural poor in the mountains outside La Paz, Bolivia. The altiplano (high plains of the Andes) is a place I've dreamed about my whole life, so I'm curious whether it will be, as Bruce Chatwin wrote of Patagonia, "as I expected but more so, inspiring violent outbursts of love and hate."