It has been a year since I last saw her.  Her face is easily recalled yet appears in my mind’s eye like a photograph, unmoving, resistant to the 8760 hours that have passed.  A day’s struggles, a sleepless night, an argument, a good laugh.  Tears?  All leaving their subtle marks on her face.  But.  I see her still, captured in a time and place that is no longer relevant to who she is now.  You think 8760 hours don’t leave a mark?  You are mistaken. Thumb through photographs of loved ones.  You will see.  Every year, good or awful, stamps their face leaving lovely little lines crisscrossing this way and that.  One story to another.

“Lets do something together we love.”  She requests via text.  I look over at my running shoes, a small hole already developing above the left big toe.

[Miles upon miles of an attempted escape.  No such luck.  She understands.  She lives with the same beast, gently breathing on her neck, quietly reminding her of the solitary run she craves.  Needs, really.  We come from a long line of solitary women.]   

“Ok, pick a race.” I reply.

[Two women, same blood, running together while the icy ocean air puffs up our lungs, sends oxygen to our capillaries, reaches our thick pulmonary veins and enters our hearts. The feeling of flight briefly releasing us from all that grounds our minds, our bodies to this earth.]      

Five weeks from now I will see her beautiful face again, lines appearing where none existed a year ago revealing a life of every days, small moments I know little about.  Yet, I can imagine. And when, a few days later, she returns home to her husband and two boys, I’ll carry her new face with me.  And wonder about her lovely, little lines, the stories we didn’t get to because time gallops along.  She is gone.

Soba Noodle Salad with Tahini Sauce

Soba noodles, a creamy tahini dressing and tons of vegetables make this a perfect marathon training meal.  Enjoy!

recipe adapted from Run Fast, Eat Slow by Shalane Flanagan & Elyse Kopecky

serves 6

Ingredients for noodle salad:

1 head of broccoli, cut into bite-size florets

2 peppers ( I used 1 red and 1 orange), seeded, sliced thin

half of an English cucumber, sliced thin

3 rainbow carrots, grated

jalapeno pepper, seeds removed, sliced thin

2 packages of soba buckwheat noodles

2 cups shredded chicken ( I bought a rotisserie chicken to make it easier.)

2 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 cup cilantro, chopped

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced ( I didn’t use them but I think it will be a great addition.)

sea salt and pepper to taste

Tahini sauce (see recipe below)

Directions:

**Cut vegetables, make sauce and shred chicken before proceeding.**

First add ice and water to a medium-sized bowl.  Set aside.  Next, add water to large pot, add a big pinch of salt.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Add broccoli to the boiling water and cook for two minutes.  Remove broccoli with a slotted spoon and place in ice water to stop cooking.  After a few minutes, drain the broccoli and set aside.

Bring the same pot of water back to a boil and add the soba noodles.  Cook according to package directions.  Drain the noodles.  Run cold water over them.  Drain.  Add noodles to a large salad bowl.  Toss with sesame oil and soy sauce.  Set aside.

Arrange all of your vegetables including the green onions and cilantro on a serving platter.  Place shredded chicken in a bowl.  Gently warm tahini sauce over low heat.  Transfer sauce to a small bowl.  Place bowl of noodles, chicken, plate of veggies and tahini sauce on the table and allow your guests to create their own soba noodle salads.  Be sure to have sea salt and pepper available!  Enjoy!

**Makes excellent leftovers!**

Tahini Sauce

recipe adapted from Run Fast, Eat Slow

makes  2 1/2 cups

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 yellow onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 can unsweetened full-fat coconut milk

1/2 cup light roasted tahini  (unsalted creamy peanut butter could be substituted for tahini)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon raw sugar

good squeeze of honey

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (add more if you want it spicier)

juice of 1 lime

juice of 1/2 lemon

kosher salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Over medium-high heat warm olive oil.  Add the onion and salt.  Cook until soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.   Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add coconut milk, tahini, soy sauce, honey, raw sugar and red pepper flakes.  Bring to a low boil and whisk constantly until the sauce is smooth.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for about 10-15 minutes.   Using an immersion blender (or a regular blender) blend the sauce until smooth.   Add lemon and lime juice.  Stir.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Serve with soba noodle salad.

**The sauce will last refrigerated in an air-tight container for up to 5 days.**

5 Healthy Soba Noodle Links

If it still feels like winter where you live cozy up with Dolly and Oatmeal’s turmeric miso soup with shiitake, turnips and soba noodles.

Looking for a healthy and quick weeknight meal?  Head to A Beautiful Mess for their sweet and spicy soba noodles with shrimp.

FoodieCrush’s soba noodles with sriracha meatballs is on my must make list.  Mouth watering.

Ribboned eggs meet sesame soba noodles in Smitten Kitchen’s can’t miss recipe.  Curious? Head here for the recipe.

It is officially spring in just a couple of weeks so why not celebrate with Food 52’s cold sesame noodle and fava bean salad.  Yum!

He sat at the edge of the hotel bed drunk, cheeks flushed, bow tie from his rented tux askew, the left lapel stained with a bit of vanilla buttercream, one black sock still erect, the other crumpled around his hairy calf, his middle-aged belly bursting against an already taut cummerbund. His wife slept peacefully alone in the middle of the king size bed in the overpriced hotel room, in the small city he wished he could flee.  The location for his daughter’s wedding had not been his choice, like many decisions in his life. What is a choice really? An option. One path verses another. An alternative.  What if you there is no alternative? Is it still choice?  Well these thoughts penetrated his foggy, alcohol soaked brain, leaving him even more depressed than he was just hours before when he witnessed his daughter say yes to love, while the love he left and the love he ran to sat near.

You don’t have to do this.  I’ll tell the driver to take you to the airport.  Like Julia what’s her name in that bride movie!  

Jesus, Dad.  She said.  C’mon let’s go.  It’s time.  

He conceded, walked beside her with arms linked, held open the church door with one hand and her long, simple veil with the other hand, for he knew better than to stand in the way of desire.

Desire always wins…at least it did in his life.  He was powerless to it, yet if he could have turned his flesh to stone, felt nothing, remained in a perpetual, unchangeable state for the rest of his days he would have done so many years ago.  His first wife.  First love.  A beautiful brunette from the same small town, left him for his best friend.  A loss that changed the map of his heart, leaving roadblocks where paths once laid.  His second wife. The mother of his children.  His need for her so intense [at the time, before the resentment, anger and hate left him sprinting to another life.] he proposed just months after their initial meeting.  [And if you asked him today why marry again? Those blue eyes.  I’m a sucker for big, blue eyes.]  He loved her more than the others.  A love full of blood, sweat and tears, literally with each child she bore him.  Lives entwined like a tree trunk and ivy.  [Which will survive? Neither.  An impossible feat removing one from the other…permanently.]  His third and final wife.  She promised less expectations.  Loved him as is, barricades and overgrown paths to his heart were OK if his warm body remained beside her in bed.   

So, he wept.  His heaves muffled by a throw pillow for he didn’t wish to wake his wife.  He wept for desire and love.  Wept for thinking he understood either.  Wept for his daughter and his new son-in-law. [Fools!]   Yet, now sitting in a tearful, drunk haze on the edge of a plush bed, in a dark hotel room, he wished to do it all over again.

He rubbed a single finger across the dried vanilla buttercream and watched it fall like snow onto the hotel carpet then disappear into its fibers.  A single flash of his daughter’s smile, a bit of buttercream above her lip while they danced to a Beatles song.  He smiled, eased the rest of his tired body onto the bed and slept.

Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes with Sour Cherry Buttercream Frosting   

makes about 16 cupcakes

recipe adapted  from The Vanilla Bean Baking Book

Ingredients for ganache filling:

4 ounces of bittersweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup heavy cream

Ingredients for cupcakes:

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (good quality, I sued Guittard)

1/2 cup freshly brewed coffee, hot (I used French Vanilla)

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 canola oil

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 Dutch process cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon Ovaltine

Directions for ganache filling:

Place chocolate chips in a medium bowl.  Using a small saucepan, heat the cream until it simmers and almost boils.  Pour the cream over the chocolate chips, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit undisturbed for 5 minutes.  Remove plastic and wrap and whisk until completely smooth.  Place bowl in the refrigerator until it is cold but not hard, about 15 to 20 minutes.  Do not let it chill completely, as it will be too hard to use!

Next make your cupcake batter.

Directions for cupcakes:

Make sure oven rack is in the middle, then pre-heat your oven to 350F.  Line two standard muffin tins with paper liners.  Only 16 to 17 will be filled.

Place bittersweet chocolate in small bowl and pour hot coffee over it.  Cover with a piece of plastic wrap.   Using a medium bowl, whisk together buttermilk, canola oil, eggs and vanilla.

Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment mix the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, Ovaltine,  baking soda and salt on low speed until well combined.  While the mixer is running on low, slowly pour in the buttermilk mixture.  Increase speed to medium and beat until completely combined, about 1 minute.

Remove the plastic wrap from the chocolate/coffee mixture and whisk until completely smooth.  Lower the speed of the mixer and add the coffee mixture to the cupcake batter.  Grab your spatula, swipe the sides and bottom of the bowl a few times to make sure everything is incorporated.

Using a ladle or cookie scoop, add batter to prepared pans until they are about 2/3 full.  Remove ganache from refrigerator and add 1 teaspoon of ganache, placing it in the middle of the batter until each cupcake is filled.

Bake for about 15-18 minutes, until the center of the cupcakes springs back when touched.  Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Sour Cherry Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

3 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 + 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

3 tablespoons sour cherry jam

Directions:

Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until light and creamy.  Add the vanilla and salt.  Scrape down the bottom and the sides with a spatula.  Beat on low for a minute or so and then increase the speed to medium and beat for another 2 minutes.  Reduce the speed and add the confectioners’ sugar.  Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.  Increase speed to medium/high and beat until light and fluffy.  Add sour cherry jam and beat for an additional minute.  Frost cupcakes using an offset spatula.  Cupcakes are best the day they are made but will last for a couple days stored at room temperature in an air-tight container.

5 Tasty Cupcake Links for your Sweetheart

If your sweetheart loves crème brûlée check out Call Me Cupcake’s crème brûlée cupcakes.

Take advantage of winter grapefruit and a little champagne this Valentine’s Day and make Baking a Moment’s grapefruit champagne mimosa cupcakes.

Love all things banana?  Check out The Whole Bite’s caramel filled banana cupcakes with sugar cinnamon frosting.  Yum!  And check out my recipe for banana cupcakes with Nutella buttercream frosting.  So damn good.

White wine cupcakes? Yes they exist and they are awesome.  Check out my recipe here.