{"id":138097,"date":"2019-07-19T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=138097"},"modified":"2019-07-19T09:58:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T13:58:28","slug":"cooking-with-bruno-schulz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/07\/19\/cooking-with-bruno-schulz\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking with Bruno Schulz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>In Valerie Stivers\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/eat-your-words\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eat Your Words<\/a>\u00a0series, she cooks up recipes drawn from the works of various writers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045110.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138101\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045110.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045110.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045110-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045110-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I have unusually clear memories of early childhood, including one about the bright-white lines of a tennis court when I could only just crawl and one about learning to walk. I can recall being so small that the lower confines of the kitchen assumed the grand scale of a castle, the floor textural and crumb-scattered; its landmarks included a drawer of copper jelly molds and another of potatoes with hairy black eyes. As an older child, I had seemingly endless Big Wheel range of our suburban neighborhood, and my memories are of the rooms created by the undersides of shrubbery, of my painstaking collection of wet stones (which all dried disappointingly gray), of the delicate plant \u201csurgeries\u201d I performed on beds of glistening aloe. It seems impossible, but I recall that my thoughts at this age were mostly metaphysical; I would hide along the foundations of our house imagining infinity or seeing how many steps of \u201cI\u2019m thinking about thinking about thinking \u2026\u2009\u201d I could grasp. Someone had told me that children forgot early childhood, so I swung in our hammock and tried to imprint the feeling of its abrasive fibers on my skin, for recollection when I got old.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing has ever returned me to that childhood feeling like the work of Bruno Schulz (1892\u20131942), a Polish Jew born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire who lived his entire life in the provincial village of Drohobych (now part of Ukraine). Schulz was a funny little man, poor and unassuming, who taught art in a boys\u2019 school and privately made semierotic drawings of cruel ladies in high-heeled shoes. His literary output was minuscule\u2014two books of short stories in nine years\u2014and his life was tragically cut short by the Holocaust. A devoted biographer, the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski, may have saved him from obscurity, and admirers such as John Updike and Philip Roth helped introduce Schulz\u2019s work to the West.<\/p>\n<p>The admiration could not be more deserved. Schulz is inimitable in both his prose and his metaphysics. (A note on the prose\u2014it\u2019s so spectacular it\u2019s almost untranslatable, and having read two translations side by side, I much prefer the older Celina Wieniewska to the newer Madeline Levine.) His stories create what Ficowski calls a \u201cSchulzian mythologic,\u201d where the events of the writer\u2019s life, the people and houses and town around him, the surrounding countryside, the sky, the sun, the groceries from the market, a friend\u2019s stamp collection or the Emperor Franz Josef\u2014all of it lifts off like a Chagall painting, is impregnated with new language and unmoored from time. What\u2019s revealed is not a flight of fancy but the indwelling qualities of everything. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAugust,\u201d the first story in Schulz\u2019s <em>The Street of Crocodiles<\/em> (1933), starts with the narrator, his mother, and his elder brother falling \u201cprey to the blinding white heat of the summer days.\u201d Metaphors for nature rarely remain natural in Schulz, and he continues, \u201cDizzy with light, we dipped into that enormous book of holidays, its pages blazing with sunshine and scented with the sweet melting pulp of golden pears.\u201d To me, the image recognition is profound; my childhood summers felt just like the sun on the pages of a book too bright to read, the meaning thrilling but just beyond my grasp. Or, as Ficowski says, the effect of this writing is \u201cthe formulation of the elusive sensual contents of my childhood\u201d and \u201cthe intensification of the taste of existence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045363.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138121\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045363.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045363.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045363-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045363-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>None of this makes Schulz a sensualist\u2014rather the opposite, in fact. The currents of femininity, sexuality, and culinary appetite that run through his work are a skewed version of the electric, linguistic buzz beneath the skin of the world\u2014but a threatening one. Most food in the stories is prepared by the alluring young maid Adela, whose domestic powers oppose the esoteric, meaning-creating structures imposed by the father. Just cleaning the house, Adela is described as \u201ca furious maenad\u201d who, \u201cprotected by the whirlwind of her thyrsus, danced the dance of destruction.\u201d Later in \u201cAugust,\u201d the story quoted above<em>,<\/em> Schulz describes Adela as returning from the market \u201clike Pomona emerging from the flames of day, spilling from her basket the colorful beauty of the sun\u2014the shiny pink cherries full of juice under their transparent skins, the mysterious black morellos that smelled so much better than they tasted, apricots in whose golden pulp lay the core of long afternoons.\u201d Adela and her apricots lift off into the universal.<\/p>\n<p>Another way to put it is that Schulz thought the world needed \u201cless matter, more form,\u201d as one character says, with the implication that matter, like time, is an unreliable, \u201cundisciplined element\u201d that \u201cholds itself within bounds but precariously, thanks to unceasing cultivation.\u201d These aren\u2019t ideas that lend themselves easily to a cooking project\u2014food is as \u201cmatter\u201d as it gets and usually at its best when it\u2019s not mythical. But I could neither cook from Bruno nor leave him be; his transmutations were too tempting, and most of the specific dishes he mentions are a type of Polish peasant food that\u2019s very close to the Russian Ukrainian cuisine I specialize in.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045238.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138124\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045238.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045238.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045238-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045238-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This menu was complicated, requiring tedious cherry pitting, nervous yeast proofing, fiddly rolling of jam-smeared dough triangles, frightening handling of a crab, and high-stakes overnight jelling. But I thought the level of craft befitted Schulz\u2019s extraordinary prose. I happened to have an obscure Ukrainian cookbook with a recipe for the kind of crescent rolls mentioned in one of Schulz\u2019s most disturbing stories, \u201cThe Old Age Pensioner.\u201d And I had recently made an intriguing, nonsweet yeast-dough cake from another Ukrainian cookbook that called for the kind of cherries I suspect Schulz means when he describes Adela\u2019s market shopping in \u201cAugust.\u201d I wanted to try the cake again in a new form, but furthermore, baked goods seem an appropriate choice for Schulz, in whose writing they often have the ominous allure of the feminine. One narrator, eating doughnuts, says, \u201cSurrounded by the dancing arabesques of dusk, I devoured pastries one after another, feeling darkness creep under my eyelids and stealthily fill me with its warm pulsations, its thousand delicate touches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The most distinctive dish in Schulz is from the story \u201cFather\u2019s Last Escape,\u201d when the father turns into \u201ca crab or a large scorpion,\u201d one of his many significant transformations throughout Schulz\u2019s oeuvre. The crab lives with the family for some time until the mother performs the \u201cunbelievable deed\u201d of boiling him and serving him on a plate, \u201cpale gray and jellified.\u201d \u201cHad she thought that Father would be better off?\u201d the narrator wonders. \u201cOr did she do it out of inconceivable thoughtlessness and frivolity? Fate has a thousand wiles when it chooses to impose on us its incomprehensible whims.\u201d The family places the boiled crab in the sitting room under a velvet cloth, but after several weeks, even more mysteriously, Father \u201csomehow rallied and seemed to be slowly recovering.\u201d One morning, the family finds \u201cthe plate empty. One leg lay on the edge of the dish, in some congealed tomato sauce and aspic that bore the traces of his escape \u2026 With his remaining strength he had dragged himself somewhere to begin a homeless wandering, and we never saw him again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For that dish, I returned to the copper jelly molds of my childhood and made a crab-tomato aspic. I bought a whole Dungeness crab (precooked for me by Whole Foods) and cleaned and broke him apart to pick the meat myself, a process I expected to be intimidating but actually found filled me with affection for \u201cFather\u201d and made it even more of a pleasure to eat him. (Schulz might find my attitude typical of the destructive feminine, but so be it.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045148.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138123\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045148.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045148.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045148-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045148-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The finished dishes were good, but I\u2019d iterate on all of them. Peasant dishes need to be done hundreds of times before they take on the shape of the maker\u2019s hand and transcend. Next time, I\u2019d make my own jam for the crescents and use pears (sweet melting pulp) or apricots (cores of long afternoons) instead of store-bought raspberry. The cherry cake recipe called for a filling of sugared cherries to be encased between two ten-inch rounds of rolled-out yeast dough. The recipe for the dough is perfection, but the cookbook, in a questionable English translation from the Ukrainian, did not provide assembly instructions. My first experiment was oddly shaped, so for Bruno Schulz, I opted for a single ten-inch round, made into something like a free-form galette. In the end, I decided I missed the extra dough (the recipe below is for the galette; apologies). For future crab-tomato aspics, I\u2019d buy and boil a live crab, make proper consomm\u00e9 instead of using tomato juice, and experiment with the quantity of gelatin. I\u2019d also like to do some layering so at least part of the jelly is clear, the way aspics were when I first started seeing them in Russia. I\u2019d love to perfect the dish\u2014serving \u201cFather\u201d in his most beautiful \u201cjellified\u201d form seems like a show-stopping goal for a summer table, and certainly something that would create vivid, unforgettable memories for any children expected to eat him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045347.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138104\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045347.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"649\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045347.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045347-300x195.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045347-768x498.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Crab-Tomato Aspic <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Adapted from <\/em>Serious Eats<em>. This dish requires a crab-themed copper mold. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>3 cups tomato juice<br \/>\n4 scallions, chopped<br \/>\na stalk of celery, chopped<br \/>\na small branch fresh tarragon<br \/>\n3 tbs lemon juice<br \/>\nsalt<br \/>\n6 black peppercorns<br \/>\na bay leaf<br \/>\n2 envelopes unflavored gelatin<br \/>\n1 tbs sherry<br \/>\na Dungeness crab, precooked and cleaned according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TY_xvzYGAWM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">these instructions<\/a><br \/>\nparsley (to garnish)<br \/>\nlemon wedges (to garnish)<br \/>\nlettuce (to garnish)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045164.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138108\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045164.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045164.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045164-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045164-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Put the tomato juice, scallions, celery, tarragon, two tablespoons of the lemon juice, one teaspoon of salt, peppercorns, and bay leaf into a saucepan, and simmer for twenty minutes, until thickened.<\/p>\n<p>Put half a cup of cold water in a medium bowl, and sprinkle with the gelatin. When the gelatin has softened and swollen, about five minutes, strain the hot tomato juice into the bowl with the gelatin, and stir until the gelatin has completely dissolved.<\/p>\n<p>Add the sherry, the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice, and salt (to taste). Stir well.<\/p>\n<p>Line the bottom of a crab-themed copper mold with the crab meat. (One crab should yield roughly one heaping cup.) Pour the tomato mixture over it, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate to set, for several hours or overnight.<\/p>\n<p>To unmold the dish, invert the mold onto a plate, and wrap in a hot, moistened dish towel. Serve garnished with parsley, lemon wedges, and lettuce leaves.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045365.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138105\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045365.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045365.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045365-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045365-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ukrainian Crescents<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Adapted from <\/em>Festive Ukrainian Cooking<em>,<\/em><em> by Marta Pisetska Farley.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>an envelope of yeast<br \/>\n1\/4 cup lukewarm milk<br \/>\n2 tsp sugar<br \/>\n2 1\/2 cups flour<br \/>\n1\/4 cup sugar<br \/>\n1\/2 cup butter, cold<br \/>\n2 large eggs<br \/>\n1\/2 cup sour cream<br \/>\n2 tsp lemon juice<br \/>\nzest of 1\/2 lemon<br \/>\njam<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045337.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138109\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045337.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045337.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045337-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045337-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>To make the dough: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a small bowl, sprinkle yeast on milk, stir in the two teaspoons of sugar, and set aside until the yeast has foamed.<\/p>\n<p>In a medium bowl, combine flour and sugar. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry cutter. Set aside in the refrigerator.<\/p>\n<p>In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until frothy and combined. Add the sour cream, lemon juice, and lemon zest.<\/p>\n<p>Remove the flour mixture from the refrigerator, and add the egg mixture and the yeast mixture. Stir with the handle of a wooden spoon until a soft ball of dough forms. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour or two (until the dough has doubled in bulk) or overnight.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045323.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138111\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045323.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045323.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045323-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045323-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>To assemble: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Preheat the oven to 350.<\/p>\n<p>Divide the dough in half, and roll out to make an oblong three-eighths of an inch thick. Cut the oblong into triangles (you should have enough dough for six to eight triangles). Spread a little bit of jam onto the long side of the triangle, then roll toward the short end. Place on a greased or nonstick baking sheet, and shape into a crescent. Repeat with the other half of the dough.<\/p>\n<p>Bake for twenty minutes, or until golden on top and crisp on the bottom.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045208.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138106\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045208.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045208.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045208-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045208-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cherry Cake <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Adapted from <\/em>The Best of Ukrainian Cuisine<em>,<\/em><em> by Bohdan Zahny. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>2 tsp yeast<br \/>\n1\/2 cup milk<br \/>\n2 tsp sugar<br \/>\nan egg<br \/>\nan egg yolk<br \/>\n2 tsp powdered sugar<br \/>\n1\/2 tsp vanilla<br \/>\n1 1\/2 cups flour<br \/>\n5 tbs salted butter, melted<br \/>\n2 lbs ripe sour cherries, cleaned and pitted<br \/>\n2 tbs cornstarch<br \/>\n1 cup sugar<br \/>\n1\/4 tsp cinnamon<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045129.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138112\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045129.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045129.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045129-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045129-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>To make the dough: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dissolve the yeast in half a cup of warm milk. Add two teaspoons of sugar, mix, and set aside in a warm place until frothy.<\/p>\n<p>In a medium bowl, combine the egg and egg yolk with sugar and vanilla. Beat until frothy. Add the melted butter, yeast mixture, and salt.<\/p>\n<p>Constantly stirring with the handle of a wooden spoon, add the flour until dough forms a shaggy, wet mass. Dust your hands and the countertop with flour, and knead, adding more flour as necessary (but as little as possible), until the dough no longer sticks to the countertop, about ten minutes. Set aside to rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour or two.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, mix together the cherries, cornstarch, sugar, and cinnamon to make the filling.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045356.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138113\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045356.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045356.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045356-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045356-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>To assemble: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Preheat the oven to 375.<\/p>\n<p>Roll out the dough in a circle until it\u2019s half an inch thick. Place on a greased or nonstick baking sheet. Scoop the filling into a pile in the middle of the dough, leaving as much liquid as possible in the bowl and about four inches of dough free around the edges. Fold the dough up over the filling in a rustic manner, and bake for thirty to forty minutes, until the filling is bubbling and the dough is cooked through. Cover with tinfoil after twenty minutes if necessary, so the dough does not overbrown. Serve warm.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045382.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-138114\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045382.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045382.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045382-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/l1045382-768x511.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Valerie Stivers is a writer based in New York.\u00a0<\/em><em>Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/category\/eat-your-words\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eat Your Words<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To cook from the stories of the fabulous Bruno Schulz, you\u2019ll need pitted cherries, yeast, and a Dungeness crab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30795],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eat-your-words"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cooking with Bruno Schulz by Valerie Stivers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"To cook from the stories of the fabulous Bruno Schulz, you\u2019ll need pitted cherries, yeast, and a Dungeness crab.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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