Food is foundational to my educational and creative practice. Growing, harvesting, processing, cooking, eating, and sharing food are ways of learning about and making meaning through experience. When I harvest a leaf of epazote from my herb garden or carefully and gather rose petals from a wild rose plant, I am creating an expressive relationship between body and sustenance. I learn about my body: the shape it needs to take to honorably harvest, what strength and tenderness must be used to gather. I learn about the plant: its qualities and shapes, and its own strength and tenderness. When I process and cook these items, as I combine them with other foodstuffs, I engage in a sensory relationship with the ingredients through touching, tasting, smelling, looking, listening to the food as it is transformed. When I eat (sometimes) share this food, I perform a ritual of exchange between my body, the food, and the community of people, plants, and animals which have made this moment of consumption possible.
In the summer in Alaska, sometimes gathering and processing is the only creative work I do in a day or week. So, this blog will now also share recipes and images of some of those expressions of learning and making meaning.
Borage, Rose, & Black Cardamom Shortbreads
Borage and rose are plants with strong defenses. Both have prickly stalks that are sharp to the touch. For me, using these plants means taking extra care and attention.
Borage is often planted as a companion plant in gardens. I planted mine for pollination. In the long summer days of Alaska, it has grown immense and tangly, ready for use.
In Alaska, wild roses bloom with exquisite fragrance in spring. I harvest petals for syrups, candy, rose water, salads, yogurts, and other applications. I like to freeze petals without immediate application on a cookie sheet in the freezer and then put them in a ziplock bag to store.
Black cardamom is not essential to this recipe, and can be replaced with any pepper. But it’s particularly smoky and spicy flavor adds unique character to this recipe. Note that ethically sourcing spices is very important as the spice trade has a complex history of human exploitation, and cultural extraction. I recommend the following companies: Curio, Diaspora, and Burlap and Barrel as a starting point.
Recipe
Makes 7-8 4” springform rounds or one 8” springform round
Ingredients
2/3 cup granulated sugar
5-8 large borage leaves
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp of ground black cardamom (more or less to taste)
2 1/4 cups gluten free flour (I use 1 cup oat flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, 1/2 cup garbanzo fava flour, 1/4 cup cassava flour all from Bob’s Red Mill)
1 1/2 sticks cold lightly salted butter, cut into 1 inch chunks
2 tsp rose water with more for finishing
candied rose petals and borage blossom for garnish
Method
Preheat an oven to 325F. If you have convection, that is ideal, but regular bake works just fine.
Prep the cake pans by lining with parchment and greasing lightly with oil or butter.
In a food processor, pulse together sugar, borage, cardamom, salt. Then add in flour. Combine well. You don’t have to be shy since this is gluten free.
Pulse in butter and rose water, to a fine crumb. If your dough sticks together rather than crumbing, don’t worry. It will work just fine.
Press the dough into the pans, right up to the edge, smoothing the surface with a back of a spoon.
Put pans on a cookie sheet and bake on the middle rack for 25-35 minutes until lightly brown at the edges.
Take out and run the blade of a fine knife around the edge of the pans while still warm to avoid sticking. Allow to cool completely before releasing from the pans.
Using a brush, paint a bit of the rose water on the surface of the shortbreads for more floral flavor as desired. Garnish with borage blossom and rose petals.