Born For This

I’ve been subjected to some sort of Divine joke.

No, really.

I’ve met the love of my life, my other half, my soul mate, the man who is all the gushy things that I didn’t really believe in.  And for this, I am grateful. Astonished might be a better word, or maybe freaked-the-f-out.

Grateful.

Part of this joke is that, despite my firm vow never to deal with long-distance relations lasting longer than 3 weeks, he is not here right now.  The total time we will be apart will be between 7 and 9 weeks; in the three weeks that have passed so far, I have made a total jealous, immature ass of myself twice.

However, as another part of this joke I get to learn how to love on him from more than 900 miles away while difficult things are going on in his life.  I am a pro at lavishing love on people from within a few dozen miles, but 900 is tough.  Every day I’m facing down the reminders of my failures during my last long-distance endeavors (my heart barely lasted 3 weeks, despite our history…but I made myself stick it out for almost 20 before I told him. Can I get partial credit for being 12 years younger than I am now?) and hoping that I am a wiser, stronger person who can really be dedicated to this amazing love that has found me.

So I am loving on him with nearly every possible form of electronic communications.  I love on him all day with text messages, I try to stifle my desperate (immature, jealous) longings for him in the e-mails that I send a few times a week, and at night I gladly suffer the staticky tin-can hell of his skype-iphone torture or, more joyfully, spend as many starry-eyed minutes as I can gazing at him through the glory of video chat.

But I’m always one to try to outdo myself, and it is the holiday season, after all (though, isn’t it always some holiday season in the states now?  I mean, really), so last week I blew my budget at the grocery store and got to cooking for him. This is the point at which I should have checked customs requirements for the place where he finds himself these days, but the heart cares not for such bureaucracies.

I had already composed the contents of the box while visiting my best friend a week or two prior:

• margarita truffles (procedure below)
• caramel corn with sea salt, almonds, and cacao nibs (a mod of Guas’s recipe as published here – sub in chopped almonds for the peanuts, add about 1/2 cup cacao nibs, salt the caramel with about 1 T of sea salt or more, to taste)
• Abuelita-dusted marshmallows (this recipe, using the vanilla bean option, and adding to the coating 1/2 tablet of Abuelita that I powdered using a grater)
• World Peace cookies (they did not make it into the cooking schedule, but that is good given the customs issues!)

First, I made some lime sea salt: spread a layer of good sea salt (just like Ina would say!) – I used Maldon – on parchment and sprinkle with the zest of 1 lime and the juice of 1/2 lime (about 3 teaspoons, tops).  I don’t know how much salt I started with, about enough to cover 2/3 of a 1/4 sheet pan, so maybe 1/3 cup?  I made too much, for reference, but this ish is good. Mix it all together with your fingertips and leave it to dry for at least an hour.  I put mine under the light breeze of a ceiling fan because I am impatient as f*ck.

Next, I made the ganache for the above truffles so that it would have time to set. About 2 cups of chopped 60% chocolate (I used El Rey but I found it a little grainy in the coating) met up with 1/3 cup+ of excellent tequila, a splash of grand marnier, and about 3/4 cup of hot cream; they were all combined and went into the refrigerator to get their act together. This made a pretty loose ganache, but I like a creamy truffle.

Then, like a wizard, I put the gelatin in the Kitchen Aid to set up, popped  10 18 – whoops – cups of corn on the stove, and cooked the marshmallow and caramel syrups simultaneously while forgetting that I had only one candy thermometer.

We made it through that minor setback with only a small caramel burn on my chin from taste-testing. You’ll see that look on the runways for fall ready-to-wear soon, I guarantee.

I whipped up the marshmallows with the syrup and the egg white addition, put the caramel corn in the oven to set, marveled at the fact that everything came out well on my first attempt at making both the caramel corn (though, God knows, I have eaten enough of the original version at Ceiba!) and the marshmallows, and rolled up my sleeves to roll the truffles in the dining room since, due to my poor planning, there was now a hot oven in the kitchen.  I may have had to set the ganache balls on a sheet pan on some ice packs to keep them from becoming creamy margarita puddles while I was rolling them.

One cup of tempered dark chocolate, some very messy hands and the obligatory chocolate handprints on every appliance, and two ruined white t-shirts later (whatwasIthinkingseriously, I have made truffles more than a dozen times and I always do that), the truffles were all coated and sprinkled with the gorgeous, slightly greenish, lime salt.

Proudly, I sampled and packaged everything the next morning before work. (The truffles, if made as described, are a touch too strong to be sampled before going to work, mmmmk?)  A crisp white candy box with cling wrap to protect the marshmallows, striped candy boxes and bright red cups in which the truffles nestled snugly, and bags for the caramel corn, all tied with white ribbon and labeled with silver cards. I wrote a lovey-dovey note card and bundled up a few fall leaves that I had brought him from the east coast, and all went off to FedEx.

We’ll put aside the fact that the package was delivered to his city Monday but still hasn’t been released from customs.

That is my first attempt at loving on him more from 900 miles away. I know he knows how I feel but, like…does he know, you know? (See, this is why I can’t do long-distance relationships: my brain never. stops. asking. questions.) The next attempt will be far less edible and much more inclined to be delivered on the first try, without making the poor man fill out a sheaf of paperwork.

(Sorry about that part, babe, I love you.)