Lemon Matcha Bars
and exercising my "free will"
If you’re online at all, you know that “exercising free will” has become a meme of sorts — whether it’s folks posting about leaving their desks to get a Wendy’s Diet Coke (so crazy!) or just acting bizarre in public to get a reaction from strangers. What free will is — and if it even exists — is the subject of heated debate, but the idea is clearly compelling to people in this cultural moment. You could probably chalk this up to the way much chance, serendipity, kismet, or spontaneity has been sucked out of our lives thanks to increasingly small social circles, work-from-home, the phone-laptop-headphones bubbles we all travel in when we’re out and about, the increasing cost of third spaces, and a growing culture of over-optimization.
As a response to this, even I’ve noticed myself becoming less rigid about what it means to be productive, avoiding stopping to ask myself, is this the most efficient or best way to do this?
This weekend, instead of doing what I usually do on Saturday mornings (watch RuPaul’s Drag Race recaps on the couch) I felt a force moving me to the kitchen. This is unusual only because, if I’m not “working” on a given day, I usually don’t conduct food experiments for fun — which sucks! But on that morning, I thought it would be fun to transform some of the heavy cream and black sesame paste in my fridge (I knew would soon go bad) into some black sesame-Oreo ice cream.
I paused while I had a bunch of the ingredients balanced in my arms, is this the best use of my time today? Then I thought, what if you just did what makes you happy today? Reader, I rarely think about that. I wasn’t even going to post about the process, but when I did, you all went berserk over on my IG Story. So I’m taking that as a sign you want the recipe — and also that some of the most interesting work can come when I’m just putzing around.
Another example? I recently bought a sewing machine. I didn’t think about it for long, I just didn’t want to keep shelling out for alterations on my clothes and got the impulse to hit “buy”. This is out of character for me for many reasons. 1) I’m pretty cheap, which might explain why I think this machine will pay itself off in a few hems. 2) I don’t like when I have to store an appliance I don’t use often. 3) I am patient zero of analysis paralysis — I will spend months deciding on what drapes to buy. I’ve never sewed before, and up until recently, I didn’t have an interest in it. But I’m excited to learn something new because, once I monetized my little baking habit, the one hobby I had went poof. Since then, I’ve kind of been hobby-less for five years (unless you count going to the gym as a hobby, which...)
Most days, I take the bus home from the gym. But the other day — even though I was exhausted — I decided it was such a nice day that I should just walk the 35 minutes back to my apartment, which I never do. And you know what? It didn’t take me that much longer than waiting around for the bus — and it felt great!
Yesterday, I got so stressed out about finding a new barber. (Remember that thing about analysis paralysis?) Since I moved, I can’t make it to my old one as often and, for me, finding a new one takes recommendations from other gay guys in Brooklyn, having to develop a relationship with the new stylist, not to mention facing increasing prices. I decided it would be better (and also maybe a little fun) to just cut it myself. Yeah, it’s reckless, yeah, my bathroom now looks like Cousin It exploded, yeah my hair… does not look great! But I freed myself from the paralysis, at least for another three weeks or so.
(As I write this, I wonder to myself, Is the experience I’m describing actually mania? Or is this how everyone feels when the temperature is above 60 for a consecutive week?)
Whether these are examples of me exercising my free will or not, I don’t think it really matters. They are more-so examples of me listening to my impulses; not the base ones that signal you’re tired or you’re hungry — the ones beneath those that whisper wouldn’t it be cool if we painted the office Shrek green?
I attended a board game night this weekend and one of the partygoers asked me what made these matcha lemon bars different from regular lemon bars. I replied, without any irony, “The amount of matcha in them.” This may have been a you-had-to-be-there moment but I couldn’t. stop. laughing. about. it. Every few minutes, someone would ask a new question about how much matcha was in each batch and I, through tears, would say, “The ones that are more green… those have more matcha. The difference between the batches is the amount of matcha.” Okay, you definitely had to be there.
The only thing you need to know is all the board game players that night agreed that the amount of matcha in the final recipe was perfect. There’s matcha mixed into the shortbread crust, blended into half of the curd (then marbled with the lemon-only curd), and if you’re a real fiend for the green stuff, you can even sift some on top at the end.
This recipe packs a unique flavor and visual punch — but only takes about 45 minutes in active time to make. The bars genuinely taste like a $9 matcha-lemonade from the most Williamsburg coffee shop you can find — and I can say that because I recently left Williamsburg.
Makes about 16-20 squares
