Urban Comfort

Satsuma Meyer Lemon Icebox Pie

Most Thanksgivings you'll find me in the kitchen making the traditional array of pies. But on Wednesday, when my cousin left a bag of beautiful satsumas and Meyer Lemons on my porch, I did a spontaneous turnabout and concocted a creamy icebox pie. Sweet with just enough acid to cut through the heaviness of endless Thanksgiving sides. 

Satsumas are plentiful in Louisiana at this time of year, but you can substitute tangerines or clementines if they're not readily available to you. Just be sure to make this pie the day before you need it, as it requires chilling time before serving. 

And now, let the Christmas festivities begin!

SATSUMA & MEYER LEMON ICEBOX PIE

2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 + 1/8 cup sugar
10 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed satsuma juice (tangerine, clementine or mandarin orange juice may be substituted)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Two 14-oz. cans sweetened condensed milk
2 large egg yolks

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.  Combine graham cracker crumbs and sugar in a bowl and stir in melted butter with a fork until evenly combined. Transfer to a 9-inch Springform pan and press into the bottom and halfway up the sides; set aside. 

Combine juice, orange and lemon zest, condensed milk, and yolks in a bowl; beat on medium-high speed of a hand mixer for 5 minutes. 

Pour into prepared crust and place Springform pan on a baking sheet.  Bake until crust is browned and filling is only slightly set, about 20-25 minutes. 

Let pie cool, then freeze until set, at least 2 hours or overnight.  Transfer to the refrigerator - remove 15 minutes before serving.  Serve with whipped cream on the side. 

 

What's your personality type?

My childhood best friend's father died recently, unexpectedly.  I was caught off guard when I heard, the way you are when someone seems too young to have died or you're suddenly aware of the passage of time. It had been many years since I'd last seen him, at the funeral of his daughter, where I was rendered mute with grief. It had been a number of years since I'd seen him before that as well. 

But I should have told him what a simple and profound gift he'd given me back when I was just a teenager, fighting to figure out who I was and what place I held in the world. It was the time of giant, boxy computers, when technology wasn't yet part of the consumer's world. I couldn't Google questions and get a plethora of answers, those I had to muddle through on my own.

I suspect when he offered to administer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test to my friend and I, that he was trying to make sense of us, what was intrinsic to us and what was sheerly teenage madness. It was one of the tools he used to place candidates in the right positions at Exxon.  Surely he'd had success with seeing how personality typing fit into the workplace, why not use that magic power to understand two impetuous, semi-hostile, risk-taking teenagers.  Why not?

We each plowed through the computerized test. There were no obviously right or wrong answers, just preferences. If you took it instinctively, going with your gut instead of pondering the answers, supposedly you would gain insight into how you viewed the world, which generally informed how you behaved in the world - the people, the experiences, the careers you'd be drawn to, the risks you were or weren't likely to take.

My friend was an ENFP.  Straight up, no ambiguity, and heavy on the feeling side. Sounded right.  Then it was my turn, and my friend's father looked excited as he headed toward me, a sheaf of papers in hand.  I was an ENXP - a rarity, he said. I'd scored almost exactly the same in the Feeling and Thinking categories (with an extra point, I think, in the direction of feeling). It was a bridge, a natural checks and balances that would allow me to see both sides of an issue, to empathize with two different viewpoints, and more importantly, to find balance within myself.

It may sound a bit simplistic, but knowing my personality type gave me the confidence I needed to trust myself, to know that I wouldn't veer too far off in the wrong direction. But it also gave me the insight to understand how those around me view the world, how to bridge the gap between our perspectives instead of stubbornly insisting on my own viewpoint. Magic, hoodoo, who cares? It's worked for me, and I'll take all the tools I can get in this life. 

I use it to relate to my husband, who is almost exactly the opposite of me. I use it when considering how to raise my son, integrating his view of the world and how he relates to it, trying to offer him the perspective that will seem most natural to him. And I've used it in my career, knowing that certain opportunities wouldn't be good choices for my long term, despite the pretty packaging (also known as simply trusting your gut). 

At any rate, I share this personal story because I think that personality typing is a great tool, at any age. I Googled Myers-Briggs a few days ago and it's much easier to take now than it used to be (yay, technology). It's about $50 to take the original test, though you will get detailed analysis when you go that route. I did find a couple of other sites that offer similar versions of personality tests.  I took both and actually got just about the same score, with a very slight preference for Feeling over Thinking, which almost aligns with my original results (and underscores the fact that personalities don't change much). I've linked to those sites below, along with a few other resources.  

I hope you'll see for yourself, because honestly, a little insight can go a really long way.  Thank you, Larry, even though I never told you.

 

Click through links:

Background on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator from Wikipedia

The Myers & Briggs Foundation

Take the Myers-Briggs test

Take a free, mini test at 16 Personalities (offers a sliding scale for answers, which may be preferable for many people).

Take a free Jung Typology Test at Human Metrics

25 Struggles Only ENFPs will Understand from Thought Catalog  (Additional lists for other types are available here as well)

Nurture by Nature: Understand Your Child's Personality Type - And Become a Better Parent  by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger

 

It's been a great tool in my life and subsequent testing has been consistent, but not everyone agrees --

A contrary viewpoint, to round things out, from Vox 

Does It Pay to Know Your Type? from The Washington Post

 

 

 

Before the Harvest

A freelancer's life is often feast or famine and these last couple of months have been a blur of overlapping deadlines and assignments, leaving me on the unbalanced side of life. Still, I am grateful, a squirrel gathering the bounty before the bleakness of winter sets in. 

I ended the week with a Halloween photo shoot for next year, and as I packed up the last of our set on location, I rushed out the door to go trick or treating only to return home and pack up for yet another photo shoot, one of a personal nature that I'd waited a year to bring to fruition, relying on the cycle of nature, its maturation, then harvest. 

Sunday morning I awoke to a brilliant sunrise in sugarcane country, the smoke from the raw sugar mill billowing out over the horizon. The air smelled of fire and cane syrup, the road humming and electric as the big trucks moved back and forth, carrying loads of cut sugarcane. It was exhilarating, a new experience for me, but somehow deeply embedded in my DNA. 

My family tree and relationships are complicated and I grew up knowing very little of my father's history until later in life. But when an elderly gentleman in a small cafe in Cajun country asked me if I was a Louisiana Stirling, one of the sugar people, I had a shock of recognition. I may not have known the details, but I have been fascinated with sugar and cane since I was a child. 

Looking back through photos of road trips, there are recurring themes of cane fields, the tall stalks blowing in the wind beneath hovering storm clouds, an endless sea of green. I can see the color, even when I photographed them in black and white. I remember, too, as a child begging my stepfather to stop by the side of the road to cut the cane for me. I loved to chew on the thick stalks, extracting the juice. Later, I moved on to a love of rum. I enjoy the taste, but more than that, I love the smell. 

There is nothing romantic about the growing and harvesting of cane. It is difficult, back-breaking work that I know nothing of, other than what I've read about.  But standing on the edge of a cane field, peering into that sea of green, the air swelling with humidity, it's one of the most peaceful things I know. It's the other side of my conflict between city and country, the New Orleans that was my mother's family, the country that was my father's. It exists in me, that blurring, that longing for the other, the strands of DNA running in opposite directions. I will never fully satisfy that itch, but I've come to love the ache of the unresolved.