Makers and shakers: Perfumer Jessica Hannah from J. Hannah Co

What a treat to be invited into Jessica Hannah’s magical perfumery. She focuses on custom-blended natural perfumes, via private consultation and in her workshops for the public. As of this week she is still currently based in Austin, TX, but next week she’s headed to San Francisco to set up shop both personally and professionally.

Jessica’s perfumes are based on 100% natural ingredients (essential oils and absolutes, tinctured bits of nature) in a pure alcohol base, the way perfumers have been crafting them ad infinitum. Synthetic perfumes have only been around for the past 100 years or so. Many synthetic scents also happen to rearrange how our bodies and brains perceive things. (Check out chapter 5 in Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking to understand more about endocrine disruptors and why fake scents bring no good to your home and body.)

I’ve not been much of a perfume person ever since my home toxins research; I lumped all perfume into the synthetic category and as it turns out completely missed how perfumers have created scents naturally since the beginning of forever.

Jessica Hannah has a background in art and performance art—connecting sense to experience, which is coincidentally exactly what perfuming is all about. A performance piece Jessica created for a school project piqued her interest in scent; she dove in from there, whole-nosed’ly.

Jessica’s perfumes follow a standard structure with three ranges of notes, the top, mid and base comprised of 8 drops for each in just shy of 1 oz base organic grain alcohol. She explained the notes to me with the top as your introduction, bright and volatile, or a smooth beginning. The mid is the heart of the matter, it can be floral or go any other direction you choose. The base is like a bass note in music, what’s underlying, below everything. It can be dirty, ancient, roots.

She also gave me a great overview on absolute vs. essential oils. Essential oils are either steam distilled or expressed. An example of an expression is citrus oils that are cold-pressed (like a good olive oil!). During distillation a hydrosol is also produced during the process. Absolutes and a waxy residue with a lot of staying power called a concrete are solvent-extracted from the plant materials and it’s a multi-step process. These tend to be much more expensive. Here’s a link she recommended if you’re interested in learning more about these processes.

I loved learning about all of the tinctures, oils, absolutes, concretes and scent materials she prepared for me, all the things that comprise her perfumers organ, a fancy term for where she stashes her scent components. I adore her DIY door-turned- perfumers organ.

I also learned that perfumers rely on interesting things (like whale poop! Amber Gris, see below) for base notes. (Yes, there are vegan alternatives for these notes.) My custom perfume has notes of Douglas fir (absolute), sandalwood, lavender, jasmine and more.

Our chat over science, scent and our creative process was like that of long-time friends reconnecting despite the fact that I’ve only met and hung out with her once before. One of Jessica’s mentors gave her the excellent advice that I continue to run on repeat in my mind when I face creative roadblocks, like too much inspiration (aka look how well everyone else seems to be doing this thing I do) or future fears (aka what’s my vision for all this?):

Just shut up and do your fucking work.

YES.

What great advice. Perfume can engage, soothe, excite, calm, etc. (the science of how our bodies react to aromas is fascinating), but getting to know Jessica has been like the experience of the perfume she crafted for me, soothing, reassuring, vibrant and connective.

Jessica has offered up one of her hand-crafted perfumes for a lucky reader. Jessica gave me a bottle to mail off to one of you lovelies of her Limited Edition Poolside Mimosa: A gorgeous floral and woody aroma reminiscent of tranquil poolside lounging. Contains notes of Mimosa, Blood Cedarwood, Jasmine, Ylang Ylang, Sandalwood, and Angelica. U.S. residents only please enter via the widget below. Follow Jessica via Instagram or Facebook, too!

Click here to enter if widget does not appear

Naturally sweetened Mexican chocolate pudding

Those of you who follow my instagram feed might recall last month how I spent the majority of my kitchen time obsessed with making pudding. My first go at pudding was for my book club meeting discussing our last book, Milk by Anne Mendelson. (I loved the book by the way, a must read for anyone interested in the history, science and everything else to do with cow dairy!)

Anne’s recipe for chocolate pudding got my attention, primarily because a. I had all the ingredients, b. I could make it the day before book club and c. I had Mast Brothers baking chocolate burning a hole in my pantry shelf. I’m including a recipe below, but it is hardly modified from the original in Mendelson’s book, which was attributed to Fannie Farmer.

I haven’t tried using other kinds of milks, but cornstarch is cornstarch and would probably bind whatever milk product you and your gut approve of. Please do keep me posted if you try it with dairy milk alternatives!

Mexican Chocolate Pudding

yields 4 ~8oz servings

1. Heat in a large saucepan over low heat 1-3/4 cups whole milk (or any percentage of milk plus cream) with 2 oz semi- or bittersweet chocolate. Adding any amount of cream will make your pudding resemble one of my most favorite desserts ever, pots de creme.

2. While the milk and chocolate reaches a simmer, combine the following in a small mixing bowl and whisk to combine:

1/3 cup coconut palm sugar (or regular white, brown, or whatever sugar you want)

3 Tbs cornstarch

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

3. Add 1/4 cup cold milk to the dry mixture and whisk thoroughly until smooth. Set aside.

4. Stir milk and chocolate saucepan contents and continue to stir until chocolate is melted. Raise heat to bring mixture to simmer (med-low) if it is not already simmering. Add contents of the small mixing bowl and stir with a heat-proof spatula and scrape to ensure milk doesn’t scorch on the bottom of the pan. Raise heat again to medium.

5. Pudding will begin to thicken and how quickly this happens depends on how much fat is in the milk. If you added cream in any proportion to the milk, thickening will happen very rapidly. Whole milk will take anywhere from 4-8 minutes to thicken. Stir regularly, but not so maniacally that you risk disturbing the starch chains that the cornstarch is trying to pull together. (This line seems fuzzy to me, but roll with it. Your pudding will come

out fine, I’m sure.)

As your pudding begins to thicken, reduce heat to low and keep stirring until it reaches the consistency of the pudding you want to eat.

6. When it gets there, remove saucepan from heat, add 1 tsp vanilla extract and continue to stir mixture to allow it to cool. You will be stirring for the next 10 minutes or so, so get comfortable.

7. When pudding is warm-ish, or just above room temp, scoop it into small ramekins or cups. You can

optionally cut rounds of parchment paper and push them flush with the top of the pudding to prevent a ‘skin’ from forming on the surface. Many people love the ‘skin’, and I’ve deemed it too much hassle to cut rounds (because I don’t want to set plastic wrap directly on the warm, fatty surface of the pudding for toxicity purposes), so we enjoy a little texture on the surface of our pudding cups!

Refrigerate for up to 5 days; condensation and/or any liquid forming on the sides of the cups and surface as they cool is totally normal.

Strawberry fruit leather

I wrote about fruit leather for Edible Austin a couple of years back. Strawberry season is hopping right now and I thought I’d reshare this great project for a pint of berries! Get the recipe and methodology here.

NOTE: I didn’t mention this specifically in the article, but if you’re dehydrating in the oven, I recommend keeping the oven door cracked slightly to allow air to circulate vs. just baking. I know it’s hot and the last thing you want is additional heat in the kitchen, but your projects will turn out much better if you allow a little air flow for that hot, drying oven air. If you end up doing a lot of dehydrating, then consider adding an affordable option for a dehydrator, like this one, to your kitchen tools. I have owned and used mine constantly for years and love it!