{"id":966,"date":"2024-01-27T14:50:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-27T14:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/?p=966"},"modified":"2024-01-27T03:37:47","modified_gmt":"2024-01-27T03:37:47","slug":"anyone-can-cook-but-thimble-knows-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/2024\/01\/27\/anyone-can-cook-but-thimble-knows-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Anyone can cook, but Thimble knows best"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Legends &amp; Lattes \u2013 Travis Baldtree<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Summary: <\/strong>An orc from a legendary group of fighters completes one last score for a lucky charm to help her leave the mercenary lifestyle for a simple life where she owns and operates a coffee shop in a mid-size port town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default\"><p><em>The rattkin made an urgent dipping motion.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p><p><em>Viv shrugged. She dunked one end into her latte and took another bite. Her eyes went wide. She chewed, swallowed, and allowed herself a moment to appreciate this subtle elegant comingling of flavors. \u201cOh hells, Thimble. That old man was right. You are a genius.\u201d<\/em><\/p><cite><em>p. 149<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>From the tagline of \u201cA novel of high fantasy \u2026 and low stakes,\u201d this book had me. As someone who has now been involved with a role-playing group for nearly 10 years and who loves the game\u2019s rare town days as much as she enjoys slaying her foes, the tagline and the idea spoke to me. I\u2019m happy to say that the book didn\u2019t disappoint; the tagline was accurate and delivered exactly as hoped.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In some ways, there is not much more to the story than the summary I provided above and the previous paragraph\u2014but where the book excels and where you would hope it would excels given its claim of \u201clow stakes\u201d is how much it focused on the small joys of a coffee shop (which I will admit is a rarer experience for me in this post[???]-COVID world), the scents of freshly ground beans and fresh baked bread, and immense pleasures of getting to know the local characters, and more importantly those who get you well enough to form a friendship, perhaps a new team but this one a little less focused on treasures and the slaying of supposed beasts. Baltree clearly knew what he was doing in focusing on character-building and slowing down the \u201caction\u201d to enjoy a quick sip, a small bit, a moment of conversation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The peak for me was the creation of thimblets, clearly a biscotti, but the moment where the food and drink come together and as the shop needs something new for its customers. But also, perhaps when everything is finally coming together for the characters and this new less dangerous but no less thrilling adventure in a fantasy world. Though the book doesn\u2019t provide a recipe, enough of a description is given, and I have made biscotti before, that I figured I could approximate it well enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/thimblets-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-965\" srcset=\"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/thimblets-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/thimblets-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/thimblets-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><figcaption>Thimblets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s what I did:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Ingredients<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>3 eggs<\/li><li>1 c. sugar<\/li><li>6 T. butter, melted, plus more for coating<\/li><li>1 T. cardamom&nbsp;<\/li><li>Zest from 1 orange<\/li><li>2 t. juice from (same) 1 orange<\/li><li>1 T. baking powder<\/li><li>3 c. flour<\/li><li>Pinch of salt<\/li><li>1 c. walnuts<\/li><li>1 c. currants<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3>Directions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><em>Step 1: <\/em>Whisk together eggs and sugar, and then add butter, cardamom, and zests and juice from orange.&nbsp;<\/li><li><em>Step 2: <\/em>Mix in baking powder and salt, and then gradually stir in flour until well cohered into a dough.&nbsp;<\/li><li><em>Step 3: <\/em>Once dough is mixed, add in the walnuts and currants.&nbsp;<\/li><li><em>Step 4:<\/em> Form into two 2 in. logs, and bake on a coated baking sheet in an oven preheated to 350 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes.&nbsp;<\/li><li><em>Step 5:<\/em> Let cool slightly, and then cut logs to about 1 inch on a bias.&nbsp;<\/li><li><em>Step 6:<\/em> Place crescents onto another (or cooled) baking sheet, recoated with butter, and bake for about 20 minutes, flipping halfway through. Let cool.<\/li><li><em>Step 7: <\/em>Enjoy with a nice hot coffee, or perhaps a latte, and a good sword and sorcery book.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legends &amp; Lattes \u2013 Travis Baldtree Summary: An orc from a legendary group of fighters completes one last score for a lucky charm to help her leave the mercenary lifestyle for a simple life where she owns and operates a coffee shop in a mid-size port town. The rattkin made an urgent dipping motion.&nbsp; Viv &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/2024\/01\/27\/anyone-can-cook-but-thimble-knows-best\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Anyone can cook, but Thimble knows best&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[470,31,278,42],"tags":[554,556,555],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}