Real Food Has Curves

Someone's going to say I'm a day late and a dollar short for Passover.

Actually, no. Because we're going to a seder on Saturday night. That's right: a seder after the holiday. Because our hosts were traveling last week during the "real" Passover. So they're having a seder the first night they can.

Which is about as it should be. (And forgive me if I'm about to step on any toes.) Because the sacred doesn't exist on a calendar.

In Greek philosophy, there are two concepts for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is the day-to-day, minute-to-minute time, the one that consumes our lives, the fire in which we burn.

Kairos (KEYE-ross) is elemental time, time in its quintessence, the time at which you forget the minute-by-minute details, the tick-tock-tick-tock, and suddenly exist in a fuller moment, a deeper moment. (We sort of retain the distinction in English: the difference between "a minute" and "a moment.") People try to schedule the sacred, but it's too deeply rooted in chaos and creativity for it to have a calendar.

Not temporal, not chronological, the sacred abrupts into life with shocking abandon. Like the sudden riot of daffodils, glimpsed as you drive down the road on the way to some boring errand or doctor's appointment. The sacred isn't on schedule; it arrives, like the cloud bursts of robins in spring--while we're going about out other business, making other plans. The minutes evaporate; time shifts from a line to a sphere, a wholeness, a fullness. Maybe that's why Emily Dickinson once wrote "Who has not found Heaven below will fail of it above." It's easy to miss it "below." Because we're on schedule (mostly); it's not.

And so to our chocolate macaroons.

First, line a couple large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mats. Set the baking racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven; preheat the oven to 350F.

Now you have to get four large egg whites. Some people separate eggs from shell to shell. Honestly, the best tools you have in the kitchen are your cleaned hands. I realize it's a little gross, but you can separate eggs easily and quickly by cradling the yolk in your palm and letting the whites run through your fingers. Plus, you don't run the risk of any contaminant on the outside of the shell somehow compromising the egg inside as you pass it back and forth between torn fragments.

Put the four egg whites in a large bowl along with 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Beat with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Why salt? It's graininess will help break up the whites.

"Soft peaks." Another culinary cliché. In essence, you want the peaks to make droopy, slightly foamy mounds off the beaters when they're turned off and dipped into the mixture. In my observations, from many cooking classes, people overbeat the egg whites at this stage, turning them into stiffer peaks, ones that have very little droop. Just get them to where they're foamy, to where they vaguely and momentarily hold a shape on the turned-off beaters. 

Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula, then begin adding 1 cup sugar in 1-tablespoon increments as the mixture bears. Continue beating at medium-high speed until all the sugar has been added and the resulting mixture is glossy, until those very peaks are much firmer, much stiffer, and until you can feel almost no grains of sugar between your fingers when you rub a bit of the mixture between them.

Remove the beaters; scrape any of the egg white mixture on them back into the bowl. Now stir in one 14-ounce package sweetened shredded coconut and 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cocoa powder. You'll may need to add the coconut in batches to get it all in there. And you'll definitely give your forearm a work-out.

Drop this mixture onto the prepared baking sheets in about 3-tablespoon increments. As you can see, Bruce uses an ice cream scoop, which will scrape the batter onto the tray in perfect little balls with flattened bottoms. You could also just use a flatware tablespoon, scooping up some and eye-balling the amount. Space the cookies about 1 inch apart on the baking sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the trays top to bottom and back to front. Continue baking for another 10 minutes, until fairly firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the sheets for a couple minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack until they cool to room temperature. They can be stored a couple days, sealed up, at room temperature--but they don't freeze very well, losing their crunch because of ice crystals that form in the cookies as they freeze (thereby making them mushy when they thaw).

(In the essence of full disclosure, this recipe comes from our ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE COOKIE BOOK, which you can find here.)