A Sweet Sandwich

July is National Ice Cream month—and my nephew Michael pointed out to me recently that I haven’t posted a single ice cream recipe in the past 31 days. With August on the horizon, I am rushing to rectify this shocking omission.

I recently put out a call for summer sandwich suggestions on Facebook and Twitter. Most of the responses involved tomatoes. After all, at this time of year none of us can get enough of those lush red fruits disguised as vegetables. I’ll post a couple of tomato sandwich recipes soon, I promise.

One warm day, my honorary cousin Deb Parker bucked the tomato trend by reminding me of one my (and Michael’s) favorite summertime treats, the ice cream sandwich!

So I set about creating one. I wanted a cookie base that would hold up fairly well without being hard. I settled on the infamous Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. As most people know, this recipe (which is also occasionally said to originate with Mrs. Fields) is passed around the internet with a supposedly true story about a friend of a friend. (I ALWAYS suspect those stories!)

The woman is said to have enjoyed eating the cookie at a Neiman Marcus café and to have asked for the recipe. According to the story, the waitress says that she will have to charge the customer “two fifty” for the recipe, and the woman happily agrees. When her NM bill comes she finds a charge for $250 rather than the $2.50 she has been expecting—and she vows to take revenge on the high-end department store by passing the recipe along to everyone she knows. Before the internet the story and recipe were spread via letters; now they make the rounds by email.

The Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie story is a classic if fun urban legend, one that Neiman Marcus has finally acknowledged by inventing its own cookie recipe and placing it on the NM web site (for free, natch). That recipe looks good, but I wanted the chewiness that oatmeal lends to the “original” recipe. So that’s what I’ve used, cutting it down a bit since it makes a ton of cookies.

Here, then, is my ice-cream sandwich recipe, thanks to whoever made up the faux NM recipe years and years ago.

You may of course use homemade ice cream. I used Snow’s, a local brand that is creamy and old fashioned–just right for an ice cream sandwich. The sandwiches were wonderful, although next time I might try to make the cookies smaller and flatter. They were extremely filling this way.

Tinky Marcus Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1-1/4 cups blended oatmeal (oatmeal pulverized to a powder in your blender)
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, pulverized to a powder (optional)
1 cup chocolate chips
2 ounces milk chocolate, chopped into small chunks (Hershey’s will do!)
6 scoops vanilla ice cream

Instructions:

First, make the cookies. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugars. Beat in the egg, followed by the baking powder and salt. Stir in the flour, oatmeal powder, and nuts (if desired). Stir in the chocolate chips and chunks.

Divide the dough into 12 good-sized balls. Place them on parchment- or silicone-covered cookie sheets and bake for 12 to 14 minutes. Let them cool on the sheets for 2 minutes; then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

When you are ready to eat, place a scoop of ice cream between 2 cookies and press them together. Repeat with the remaining cookies. Serves 6 generously.

Vote for Your Favorite Farmers Market!

Massachusetts Agriculture Commissioner Scott Soares at a recent visit to the Farmers Market in Shelburne Falls (Note his EXCELLENT taste in books!)

The American Farmland Trust is asking Americans to identify their favorite farmers markets in an online poll. I love this idea, and I hate to fan the flames of regional chauvinism. Nevertheless, I must admit that my own flames are already fanned: I was incensed by the partisan article in which I found out about this effort.

In Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times Russ Parsons wrote about the “grievous wrong” done to California farmers markets by the polling so far, which has not focused entirely on his state.

He complained, “Now, there’s no arguing that there are great farmers markets all over the country these days. But Ithaca? Given the weather up there, how long can it be open? Two weeks in August?”

He went on to urge his fellow westerners to vote for their local markets.

I know Parsons’ tongue was in his cheek. Nevertheless, I reserve the right to take a small bit of umbrage at his assumption that bigger (in this case, a bigger growing season) is better.

Farmers markets foster small farms and often small fruits and vegetables, which can be the most delectable of all. We in the northeast may not have a very long growing season, but we treasure our few days of harvesting just as we treasure our small farms and their produce.

So without pressuring you, dear readers, to vote for any particular market, I urge you to participate in the poll. (I can of course HOPE that you’ll choose farmers markets in the northeast!) You have until August 8.

If you have a market you particularly love, in addition to telling the American Farmland Trust about it please feel free to share it with readers in the comments section below.

Enough venting! I’ll be back on Friday with a summery recipe and a better attitude……

Green Beans with Garlic

Ivy Palmer with her new cookbook

I recently checked into my Twitter account—and one of my fellow Tweeters had posted a morning thought that clocked in far below the 140-character maximum allowed by that social network: “I LOVE SUMMER!” I couldn’t have said it (or rather typed it) better or more succinctly myself. I love the sun, the greenery, the long evenings of music and camaraderie, the swimming—the sense of literal and figurative immersion we feel in this season.

My only complaint about summer is that it is so fleeting. The relativity of time is particularly apparent at this time of year; the plodding pace of mud season has given way to summer’s gallop. Our local Bridge of Flowers Road Race (coming up on August 8!) is a telling symbol of the velocity of summer life in our area. Suddenly each day, each night, each weekend overflows with activities. And the summer flies by before we know it.

There’s never enough time in July and August to spend preparing complicated dishes. Luckily our local farm stands and Farmers’ Markets provide us with plenty of fresh produce that cooks up into a quick summer meal.

The corn may not yet be as high as an elephant’s eye, but it has certainly surpassed the height of my dog Truffle. We’re beginning to get that summery vegetable plus flavor-filled tomatoes, crisp greens, resilient beans, shockingly bright carrots, tender broccoli, delicate nectarines, and even baby potatoes. The Farmers’ Markets also offer oven-fresh bread for those of us (like me) who can’t be bothered with baking the stuff in warm weather.

The Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, Farmers’ Market has just made life simpler for fresh-food lovers by publishing The Shelburne Falls Farmers Market Cookbook. This slim volume provides information about common (and a few uncommon) vegetables in our area. It also offers recipes from vendors and food lovers that take advantage of the season’s bounty.

Put together by the market’s organizer, Ivy Palmer of Pitchfork Farm in East Charlemont, the book is lively and useful. Ivy obtained a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources to help defray the costs of the booklet; profits will help maintain the market.

Leafing through the book, I’ve found a number of recipes I want to prepare—and I know I’m not the only one! Last time I went to the market I saw a Shelburne Falls resident who wants to remain anonymous purchase a copy from Ivy the minute she heard that a special recipe she had already tried was in the book.

I have a couple of tiny complaints about the cookbook. One is that the recipes don’t tend to provide a yield; that is, you have to use your common sense (or wait and see!) to determine how many people the dishes serve. The second is that we don’t get much information about the individuals who contributed recipes. Always curious about my neighbors, I want to know who they are and where they live.

Despite these minor quibbles, I know I’ll be cooking out of this book a lot this summer and in summers to come. Ivy has given me permission to offer a few of the recipes on these pages. I hope they will encourage readers to visit her market and others and to grab and use all that lovely summer produce—before it disappears like a runner in the Road Race!

Green Beans with Garlic

My first try at cooking out of the cookbook couldn’t be easier—or tastier! I have adapted it slightly to reflect the produce I had on hand.

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups green or yellow beans, trimmed and cut into 2- to 3-inch strips
1 to 2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon chopped fresh garlic
1 pinch salt
several grinds of the pepper mill
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Instructions:

Cook the beans in boiling lightly salted water for 5 to 7 minutes, until they are ALMOST done. Remove them from the pot, and drain them.

In the pot you used for the beans melt the butter. Add the garlic, and sauté lightly for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the beans, salt, and pepper, and toss lightly for a minute or two.

Put the beans in a serving dish, and sprinkle parsley over them. Serves 4.

Viv and Ethel (and Always Lucy)

Vivian Vance (Kansas Historical Society)

The woman fellow character actress Mary Wickes called “the best second banana in the business” would have turned 100 on Sunday, July 26. Vivian Vance was born Vivian Roberta Jones in 1909 in Cherryvale, Kansas.

According to biographers Frank Castelluccio and Alvin Walker, it always bothered Vance that she was inextricably linked in the public mind with frumpy landlady Ethel Mertz in the situation comedy I Love Lucy.

They quote her as saying, “When I die, there will be people who send Ethel flowers. I’ll get to heaven and someone will say, ‘Hi, Ethel! I see you are still in re-runs!’”

They also chronicle her ambivalent relationship with Lucy star Lucille Ball. Ball was at once Vance’s closest friend and a source of resentment. Playing second fiddle doesn’t sit easily on the ego. Never a complete professional success before or after her collaborations with Ball, Vance understandably longed to be a star on her own. She wanted to be free of Lucy and free of Ethel.

If Vance could look back on her career today, however (she died in 1979), history might show her the value of her work. I Love Lucy paved the way for almost all television comedies that followed it, both in terms of technique and in terms of narrative.

It also gave viewers an eternal model of supportive friendship. Lucy and Ethel were the forerunners of many TV gal pals to come, including the eponymous heroines of Laverne & Shirley, all of Charlie’s Angels, and Cybill and Maryann of Cybill.

When my friend Teri Tynes and I used to drop in on each other across the courtyard of our Austin, Texas, apartment complex, the Casa del Rio, we liked to refer to ourselves as Mary and Rhoda (in homage to the Mary Tyler Moore Show). We could just as easily have called ourselves Lucy and Ethel. Their relationship epitomized the comfort, companionship, and adventurous spirit we felt with each other and sensed in these television comrades.

One of Vivian Vance’s frustrations was that she was often called upon to react in I Love Lucy rather than to act. It was Ethel’s grimacing face that told us that Lucy was about to do something outrageous, Ethel’s careful listening that gave Lucy a chance to expound on her latest scheme.

Reaction is a large part of friendship—and a large part of great acting. So on this anniversary of Vivian Vance’s birth let’s give second bananas everywhere their due. By the time the banana bread comes out of the oven no one can tell where the first banana left off and the second banana took over.



Second Banana Bread

This recipe comes from another Lucy/Ethel Mary/Rhoda friend, my graduate-school housemate Sara Stone. Sara is probably the most generous person I know. In the last year of my doctoral program I was convinced I had only a couple of weeks to go on my dissertation. Sara invited me to stay with her until it was finished. It took NINE MONTHS! Sara never complained; she just gave me unconditional support and shelter (not to mention grocery money). And she can cook, too! We all need friends like Sara.

Of course, I’m still not entirely sure which of us was Lucy and which Ethel.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup ripe mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Instructions:

Grease a standard loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Stir in the bananas, and then beat in the eggs. Beat in the baking soda and salt; then gently stir the flour into the butter mixture. Add the pecans if desired.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out dry. (Sara likes her bread a bit mushier than this, but my family likes it firm.) In my oven I tend to bake it for an hour, then turn off the oven and leave it for another 15 minutes or so—but by all means test your bread and YOUR oven.

Cool the loaf on a rack for 20 minutes; then release it onto the rack to finish cooling.

Makes 1 loaf.

A Trip to the Moon

NASA

I see the moon. The moon sees me.

As we contemplate the anniversary of the moon landing forty years ago today, the moon is barely visible in the sky very early in the morning (not my ideal moon-gazing time of day!).

It’s the “tiny silver slipper of a moon” of Tennessee Williams, not the rich glowing globe of the full moon.

Nevertheless, the moon is never far from our imagination. As an article in yesterday’s New York Times pointed out, the moon has inspired humans for millennia and has held a special place in our popular culture. My favorite moon fantasy is A Trip to the Moon (1902), a charming and playful early short French film by Georges Méliès.




The moon is our sister and our closest celestial companion. Its silver beauty keeps us company, sheds soft light through our darkness, and reminds us that our home is not the only place in the universe.

The moon landing itself was one of the most joyous moments in recent American history. I am only 39 so I can only surmise that my vivid memories of it must be prenatal.

TV reception is minimal in Hawley, Massachusetts. Forty years ago the residents of Singing Brook Farm all crowded into the Farm’s highest point—the upstairs apartment in the barn, then inhabited by the glamorous Florette Zuelke—and watched the landing on a fuzzy tiny black-and-white television set. Even on that little, dim screen the “one small step” stunned us.

In an era in which many Americans were increasingly skeptical about our government and society, the moon landing celebrated some of the best things about life in these United States—our adventurous spirit, our pragmatism, our love of science, our optimism.

Today along with the moon landing we remember Walter Cronkite, who narrated that event for us. Recalling the moon landing also brings back some of Cronkite’s outstanding qualities—his sense of fun, his journalistic tenacity, his belief that we as a people could do good and do well.

Watch CBS Videos Online

In honor of this sweet anniversary, I offer a sweet recipe for Moon Pies (what else?). Although the Chattanooga Bakery, the inventor of this treat, now makes a variety of flavors (chocolate, banana, peanut butter!), I am faithful to the original moon pie. This is a sizeable chocolate-covered, marshmallow-filled, graham-cracker cookie. It isn’t quite as sizeable as the one NASA is serving today according to the Huffington Post, but then my kitchen doesn’t have as many visitors as NASA–yet!

My only deviation was to place chocolate on the top of my pies only, rather than all around them. This made application of the chocolate easier and kept the chocolate from overwhelming the other flavors.

The graham-cracker recipe is a very slight adaptation of one from the excellent blog Smitten Kitchen, for which I thank Smitten Kitchen’s writer/cook, Deb.

Of course, you’re welcome to try to cut commercial graham-crackers into rounds, but I highly recommend making your own.

And now, the recipe……….

Singing Brook Farm Moon Landing Moon Pies

Ingredients:

for the crackers:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons graham or whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur Flour’s white whole-wheat flour)
1/2 cup dark-brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3-1/2 tablespoons (almost 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 4 cubes and frozen
5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon maple syrup
2-1/2 tablespoons full-fat milk
1 tablespoon vanilla

for the filling:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup marshmallow cream

for the topping:

12 ounces milk chocolate (Hershey’s works just fine; there’s no need to get fancy!)

Instructions:

Early in the day (better yet, early the day before you want to serve the moon pies since the crackers work better the second day) prepare the dough for the graham crackers. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on low to combine; then add the butter and mix on low again until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Add them to the flour mixture and mix until the dough just comes together. (Deb warns that the dough will be fairly sticky, and she’s right!) Dust a large piece of waxed paper with flour, turn the dough out onto it, and pat it into a rectangle that measures about 1 inch thick. Wrap it and then chill it for at least 2 hours, until it firms up.

When the dough has firmed, divide it in half and return half to the refrigerator. Sift flour onto your work surface, and roll the dough out until it’s about 1/8-inch thick, adding flour as necessary to keep it just workable. Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter to cut rounds out of the flour, returning leftovers to the fridge to chill with the second batch of dough. When you finish with both batches of dough and their leftovers you should have about 16 rounds. Prick a few holes in each round with a fork.

Place the rounds on parchment- or silicone-covered cookie sheets about 2 inches apart, and put them in the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees while they chill. When you are ready to bake, put the crackers in the oven and bake them for about 15 to 20 minutes, until they are a little brown and slightly firm to the touch, rotating the cookie sheets after 8 minutes.

Allow the cookies to cool completely; then place them in a plastic bag until you’re ready to assemble your moon pies.

To assemble the moon pies: in the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, sugar, and vanilla, until they are creamy and completely blended. Fold in the marshmallow cream.

Gently spread the filling on the bottom of half of the crackers, and top with the remaining crackers.

Finally, melt the chocolate in a double boiler, and gently swirl chocolate on the top of each moon pie. Allow the chocolate to firm up before serving. Makes 8 big moon pies.

NASA

A Salute to the Hidden Harriet

Harriet Hilliard Nelson (Courtesy of MortysTV.com)

Tomorrow the matriarch of “America’s favorite family” would have turned 100.

Born Peggy Lou Snyder on July 18, 1909, Harriet Hilliard Nelson grew up in a theatrical family that used the name Hilliard (definitely classier than Snyder!). She worked as a chorus dancer and an actress before trying her hand as a singer and nightclub mistress of ceremonies. In 1932 she started singing with bandleader Ozzie Nelson’s orchestra, beginning a professional and personal partnership that would last until Ozzie’s death in 1975. (Harriet herself died in 1994.)

In the 1930s Harriet still worked solo from time to time. Her biggest role came in the 1936 Astaire-Rogers film Follow the Fleet, playing the romantic second lead opposite Randolph Scott. One can glimpse the singer she was—and the actress she might have become—in that film, where she is attractive and has a sultry if smallish voice.

Increasingly, however, she worked only with Ozzie. After the birth of their two children, David (in 1936) and Eric (known as Ricky and later Rick, in 1940), the couple began performing on the radio. This medium enabled Ozzie and Harriet to maintain a more stable home life than nightclub work could offer.

They launched their signature radio program, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, in 1944. The program allegedly followed the real-life story of the couple and their sons. The latter were played on the radio by actors. When the Adventures expanded to television in 1952, David and Ricky were brought in to portray themselves.

The televised Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet became one of the best known American situation comedies of the 1950s and 1960s. The program is sometimes irritating to view today. (I had to watch A LOT of episodes while doing research for my dissertation so I should know!) Like Ozzie’s rather bland orchestra, it tended, in the words of one critic, to “[border] very much on the Babbitt.”

By the time they hit television Ozzie and Harriet were primarily actors rather than musicians, although they sang in a few episodes. Young Rick sang increasingly beginning in 1959, when under his father’s watchful eye he became a recording star.

Even after Rick emerged as a singing sensation the major emphasis of the television program was on family life—specifically on the dilemmas of males, both grown up (Ozzie) and growing up (David and Ricky). Ozzie’s character was awash with insecurity. He was never sure he was brave enough, strong enough, or rugged enough— in short, masculine enough. In the final analysis, then, the only character in the program who seemed like a true grown up was Harriet.

Although her character was allowed occasional wisecracks, she generally represented reason and stability. Harriet Nelson played this character with grace and a certain amount of charm, but I frequently find myself wondering what the televised Harriet might have been like freed of Ozzie and the boys.

The same question comes to mind about the offscreen Harriet Nelson. She was portrayed in magazines and newspapers of the 1950s as a quiet homemaker who viewed her work on the family’s show as an old-fashioned pre-industrial cottage industry, a suitable accompaniment to her collection of early-American antiques. Nevertheless, no true personality peeks out of those pages.

Ozzie was described in the press as an efficient producer and director of the show; one can sense the iron hand with which he ruled the family as well as the program. The younger Nelsons were described as fairly normal boys who just happened to be the stars of a television show. While this was undoubtedly an exaggeration, they had definite personalities. The “real” Harriet disappeared from press coverage, however, just as her earlier vivacity disappeared from the television program. Behind the pretty smile and the smooth, tailored dresses lurked an enigma.

I hope the Harriet we never really knew managed to enjoy herself. I like to think that her on- and offscreen rationality and blandness camouflaged a busy, happy existence.

In any case, I use the recipe below to salute her competence as an actress and her status as one of America’s best known television personalities. (A 1965 New Yorker cartoon celebrated the Nelsons’ iconic status; in it a TV-watching wife tells her husband, “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll try to be more like Harriet if you’ll try to be more like Ozzie.”)

The recipe was inspired by the episode “Pancake Mix” in the televised Adventures’ first season. In this half hour Harriet tries a new product, Hasty Tasty Pancake Mix. The Irrepressible Ricky (as he was often called by the program’s announcer) tries to get rich by exploiting the promise of the Hasty Tasty company to refund twice the purchase price of its product if the mix doesn’t make the finest pancakes the eater has ever tasted.

Ricky learns his lesson (sort of) when the pancake-mix president shows up at the Nelson home with a retinue and prepares a batch of pancakes on the spot—adorned with chocolate ice cream, strawberry jam, whipped cream, and a cherry.

Naturally, Ricky declares that these are ABSOLUTELY the finest pancakes he has ever tasted. Mine weren’t bad, either—or so my nephew Michael told me. He ate them with maple syrup. I was careful not to mention the trimmings Ricky enjoyed until after we had finished eating!

Enjoy them—and think of Harriet in her perfectly pressed apron, competently flipping them on her Hotpoint kitchen range….

Courtesy of Kathleen O'Quinn Jacobs

Hasty Tasty Pancake Mix

You may double this recipe easily. In fact, you may make up to EIGHT TIMES as much mix as the recipe suggests; just make sure that it is well mixed together.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup buttermilk powder (in larger grocery stores under “baking needs”)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder

Instructions:

Sift together these ingredients, and whisk them as well to make sure that they are thoroughly combined. Store the mix in an airtight container until it is needed (but not for more than 3 months!).

To make a batch of pancakes: In a bowl whisk together 1 cup water, 1 egg, and 2 tablespoons melted butter. Gently stir in the pancake mix. Do not overmix the batter.

Heat a frying pan or skillet to medium heat (about 375 degrees), and melt a small amount of butter into it. Dollop just under 1/4 cup batter onto the pan for each pancake.

Turn the pancakes after a minute or two, when they are nice and bubbly on the surface and easy to lift; then cook them on the other side. Add a bit more butter as needed to prevent sticking. Remove and serve with butter and warm maple syrup—or ice cream, jam, whipped cream, and a cherry. Each recipe makes about 10 pancakes.

The Irrepressible Michael contemplates a Hasty Tasty Pancake. (I think he's ready to utter Ricky's favorite line, "I don't mess around, boy!")

Papa Haydn Anniversary Torte

Yesterday was Bastille Day—so we hosted a “Let them eat cake!” evening at our house. Neighbors came over to help consume the sweet goodies I had to test this week. The most impressive of these (in flavor, if not in looks) was the Haydn Anniversary Torte.

This year Mohawk Trail Concerts is celebrating a number of musical anniversaries in addition to its own 40th birthday. The July 24/25 concert will honor the 200th anniversary of the death of Franz Joseph Haydn, known to music lovers as Papa Haydn.

I wanted to pay tribute to Haydn (the father of the string quartet, one of my favorite musical combinations) but I didn’t know much about his taste in food. He HAS been dead for a while, after all. I did a web search using the words “Papa Haydn” and “recipe.”

To my delight I found the innovative, upscale Papa Haydn Bakery and Restaurant in Portland, Oregon.

The owners of Papa Haydn, sisters Evelyn Franz and Heidi Van Dyke, are German. Van Dyke was trained as a pastry chef in Austria so they honored their roots by naming the place after Austria’s patron composer. They have been in business for three decades and seem likely to keep their classic tradition going for years to come.

I sent a plea to the restaurant. Manager Tewin Ettien generously provided the recipe below, which was created just for this year’s Haydn anniversary by Papa Haydn’s lead baker.

You can see that the version made by Papa Haydn (which appears at the bottom of this post) is much nicer looking than mine. Mine was looking fabulous for a while–mostly because of the sterling efforts of my sister Leigh, who has very delicate hands. She was doing a great job assembling the thing and remarked, “No one will believe you made this, Tinky,” because she knows from experience that presentation is not my forte.

Alas, I decided to place the final layer onto the torte myself. The result was first ooze and then collapse! I think that when I make the torte again (and it really is worth the effort and the expense of the ingredients), I’ll put it in a trifle pan. That way the collapse will be contained.

I didn’t have a torch so I tried broiling the fluff—again not one of my finer efforts. Another time I think I’d just use a little more filling or maybe some whipped cream on the top.

I hope I haven’t scared readers away from this recipe; it really is lovely, just a little challenging for those who, like me, lack the ability to put delicate things together. (If you’re one of them, do try it as a trifle!) By the way, the filling is pretty amazing all by itself with fresh fruit.

Papa Haydn (Courtesy of Mohawk Trail Concerts)

Ingredients:

for the syrup (this may make a little extra):

1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons framboise (raspberry liqueur)
1 tablespoon vanilla

for the cake:

2 cups cake flour, sifted
3/4 cup cocoa
1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1-1/3 cups coffee

for the filling:

1 cup mascarpone
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons framboise (raspberry liqueur)
3/4 cup cream

for assembly:

1 pint fresh raspberries (plus a few more if you just can’t resist)
about 1 cup marshmallow fluff

Instructions:

First, make the syrup. Bring the syrup ingredients to a boil, and then let them cool completely.

Next make the cake. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a half-sheet pan (a pan that measures approximately 8 inches by 13 by 1). (I only had a 9-by-13-by-1 inch pan, which worked very well.)

Sift together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating with the coffee.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (about 30 minutes in my experience, but check earlier).

Allow the cake to cool completely. Toward the end of the cooling process, make the filling. Put the filling ingredients into an electric mixer and blend at low speed until combined. Turn the speed up to medium and beat until soft peaks form.

To assemble the torte, cut the cake into thirds. Make layers as follows: cake, syrup (“painted” on), raspberries, filling; cake, syrup, raspberries, filling; cake. (Save a few raspberries for the end!)

Put the fluff into a pastry bag and pipe it on top of the cake. Brown the top with a torch, and garnish with fresh raspberries. Serves 8.

The "Real" Torte (Courtesy of Papa Haydn)

My Torte After Collapse and Spooning (Picture it as a trifle!)

Joan and Bill's Sunday-Brunch Pancakes

Joan Morris and William Bolcom (Photo by Katryn Conlin)

Intent on continuing my culinary tribute to Mohawk Trail Concerts, I got in touch with the couple who are the audience’s hands-down favorite year after year (they make an appearance at every summer concert series), Bill Bolcom and Joan Morris.

Bill is a Pulitzer-prize winning composer as well as a sensitive pianist and accompanist. Joan is probably our country’s leading practitioner of musical cabaret. She has a rich mezzo-soprano voice and a capacity to put across any type of song—funny, tender, bawdy, earnest: you name it, and she can do it.

When I asked Joan for a recipe, she replied, “Well, you’ve hit on the closest thing to my heart–after music, of course–which is FOOD!”

She explained that she makes these relatively low-carb pancakes every week. She added, “Sometimes I’ll add blueberries, which I did yesterday. If we’re feeling virtuous, we’ll have them with apple butter or no-sugar-added jam, but since we’ve been coming up to Charlemont we fell in love with Grade B Maple syrup from Gould’s Sugar House, and, OK, we have that, too, sometimes.”

My mother, Truffle, and I tried the pancakes for Sunday brunch yesterday and were very pleased. They’re a cross between a pancake and an omelet—not unlike a crepe or a blintz. A little fruit and sour cream (Greek yogurt for the healthy!) would make a nice accompaniment, but we went for the traditional maple syrup. It seemed to me that they took a little longer to cook than traditional pancakes--but the wait was worth it!

Bill and Joan will be featured this weekend at Mohawk Trail Concerts. Saturday night concertgoers may also support the Federated Church, the concerts’ venue (and my church; I sang a FABULOUS solo at yesterday’s morning service!) by attending the Chicken Barbecue before the concert. The highlight of the barbecue is always the homemade pies; my mother and I are contributing a couple of key-lime beauties.

Meanwhile, here is Joan’s recipe:

Ingredients:

3 eggs, beaten
1 cup cottage cheese
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 to 1/3 cup flour
salt to taste (Joan uses about 1/2 teaspoon; I like a little more)
a small amount of butter for cooking (Joan didn’t mention this, but my pancakes needed it)

Joan’s Instructions:

After beating the eggs in a bowl, add the other things. I’ve learned to measure out the flour first (the recipe [from which it was adapted in The Low Blood Sugar Cookbook] calls for oat flour, but any will do), then the cottage cheese, so I don’t have to wash out the measuring cup after the cottage cheese.

You pretty much dump everything else in, stir it up, and spoon out about 4 small pancakes at a time on a griddle pan, if you have one of those. The recipe says it makes 10 to 12 pancakes, but I’ve stretched it out to about 16 small ones.

They’re yummy! They come out nice and crispy round the edges. Now you know how come Bill stayed with me all these years!

A Garden Tour

Roses in Mary Kay Hoffman's Garden

This time of year it seems as though garden tours are everywhere. A month ago gardens in Western Massachusetts were barely getting started! Now thanks to the frequent bouts of rain we’ve been enjoying(?)–and of course to the labors of those who love to garden–flowers and vegetables are almost unbelievably lush.

We’re now wedged between two of my favorite tours. The Franklin Land Trust just held its annual Farm & Garden Tour. I am always surprised by the variety of farming enterprises, landscapes, animals, and flowers this tour highlights.

And this weekend the Hawley Artisans and Garden Tour will take place in my hometown. The Hawley tour is a fund raiser for the Sons & Daughters of Hawley. This event isn’t what you’d call huge because Hawley isn’t what you’d call huge (although my late neighbor Florette always used to point out that it had the same square acreage as Singapore; I don’t know whether that’s strictly true, but it’s a wondrous thing to contemplate even if it’s only approximate!).

The Hawley tour lasts only one day (Saturday, July 11, this year) but still manages to attract a good crowd. Some years it has featured gardens; others, artists and artisans (I was a featured artisan one summer). Last year and this the organizers decided to combine the two–so visitors can view quilts, paintings, flowers, and much more.

I stopped by Sunday to visit Mary Kay Hoffman and Earl Pope, whose garden will be featured on Saturday's tour. Mary Kay handles the floral end of the yard while Earl is in charge of the vegetables; he has planted A LOT of tomatoes this year.



Mary Kay took time from her pre-tour weeding marathon (she says she’s sore in what she could swear are new muscles!) to show me around. I’m hopeless at identifying flowers–unlike Mary Kay, Earl, and all the other dedicated workers on the tour I am no gardener–but I know that hers are beautiful and that it relaxed me to spend time walking by them.

I’ll return on Saturday with my mother for more inspiration. Local readers who would like to take the tour may find contact information at its web page (the area code to call is 413).

Meanwhile, Mary Kay has offered a simple garden-party recipe for those who can’t attend this weekend’s festivities. Invite friends to enjoy these summer-filled sandwiches and celebrate the abundance in gardens around you. The flowers, fruits, and vegetables will be a fireside memory all too soon.

Mary Kay

Mary Kay’s Tea Sandwiches

I’m sorry to give you another non-specific recipe, but the amounts in this one depend on a number of factors–the bread you use, the size of the vegetables you use, how generous you are with the butter, and so forth. So please forgive me. The sandwiches are worth the effort. The butter gives them a richness that will wow your garden-party guests. As Mary Kay says, “You can’t just eat one!”

Ingredients:

1 loaf white bread (MK uses Arnold Brick-Oven White. I couldn’t find it at my store so I used a Pepperidge Farm Sandwich loaf; this is one recipe in which home-made bread is NOT preferable!)
softened butter
fresh herbs (dill for cucumber sandwiches, basil for tomato)
thinly sliced cucumbers and/or tomatoes as needed

Instructions:

First, cut the bread. Use a round cookie cutter to cut rounds of bread out of the slices of your loaf. According to Mary Kay, the rounds should be about the same size as your vegetables so you obviously want larger rounds for the tomatoes than for the cucumbers.

I have only a limited number of cookie cutters so my rounds weren’t QUITE the right size; in fact, they were a little big for the cukes and a little small for the tomatoes (which I cut up). I could only get 2 cucumber-sized rounds and 1 tomato-sized round out of each slice of bread; I gather that Mary Kay gets more volume (and probably has bigger slices of bread). So I wasted some bread. What wasn’t wasted was divine, however.

As you cut the rounds, place them in a plastic bag so they don’t dry out as you cut their brothers and sisters.

Blend your butter with most of the herbs in a food processor. You may also chop the herbs and blend them with the butter manually. I should think 1/2 pound of butter and 1/2 cup herbs would make enough herb butter for a whole loaf, but I’d have extra butter and herbs on hand anyway.

If you like, you may freeze the buttered rounds until you are getting ready for your party. (Cutting and buttering them are fairly labor intensive and therefore handy to do in advance.)

To freeze the rounds, place them in a sealed plastic container with waxed paper between layers. When you’re ready to thaw them put them directly on your serving plate; they won’t take long to come to room temperature.

Thinly slice the cucumbers and/or tomatoes and put them on the appropriate buttered rounds. Garnish with additional herbs. These are open-faced sandwiches so you only need one round per sandwich.

Your garden-party guests will LOVE them! You might want to consider making and freezing additional herb butter to impart extra flavor to vegetables and bread.

Truffle knows that a hat is always suitable attire for a garden tour or garden party.

A Glorious Fourth

Liza ALWAYS dresses appropriately.

At Singing Brook Farm in Hawley, Massachusetts, we celebrate Independence Day in a low-key but festive manner.

Our impressaria for the occasion, Liza Pyle, organizes an annual pot-luck lunch near the Dam (where the water forms a lovely if frigid pond), followed by what she terms “hijinks”–games for the young and the not so young.

This year it started to rain just as the time came to light the fire by the Dam so we moved to the Play House, a building constructed by Liza’s grandfather just for days like this one. We had enough chairs, enough food, and eventually enough sunshine for everyone.

The edible offerings included things one couldn’t be without on July 4 (hot dogs, baked beans, devilled eggs, farm-fresh tomatoes, brownies), plus a new dish to me, grilled baked potatoes supplied by Liza and her brother David. I can’t wait to make them. I’m not much of a griller, but honestly I think even I could manage these!

Before I get to the semi-recipe (it’s more of a narrative), here are a few pictures of the hijinks.

This was a relay race in which participants had to don clothing as they switched off. For some the shoes and hat were just A LITTLE too big.

Our National Game

Away from the water the annual rubber-duck race had to get creative.

Alice was the queen of the egg-and-spoon race (and much else!)

Water balloons provided plenty of summer fun.

We had occasional (short lived!) displays of attitude.

As you can see, a good time was had by all (mostly!). The day revolved around community, the fruits of nature, and future generations. In short, our July 4 was almost iconically American. And now here is how one fixes the potatoes:

Bake several potatoes until they are almost done. A fork should be able to penetrate them, but they should still be firm.

Cut them in half lengthwise; then brush (or rub!) extra-virgin olive oil on both sides of both halves.

Grill the potatoes until they brown nicely (this won’t take long!).

Serve with sour cream into which you have mixed chives, salt, pepper, and anything else that takes your fancy (mustard, other herbs, horseradish--whatever!).

Don’t forget to sing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

All-American Shortcake

I just bought what I think may be my last strawberries of the season! I’m sad, but there’s so much great produce hopping into farmstands that I can’t weep for long.

I haven’t made jam yet this year so I hope to use some of my new berries for that. I’m also planning a classic shortcake for our Singing Brook Farm neighborhood picnic on Independence Day. If I decide that my contribution HAS to be red, white, and blue, I’ll throw in a few blueberries as well. (In fact, this shortcake may be made with just about any fruit; I may love it best with a mixture of peaches and raspberries.)

This recipe is flexible. If you don’t want to prepare your whole shortcake at once you may cut the dough into squares or circles before baking it. Or you may cut the baked big shortcake into wedges and THEN add the strawberries and cream to each piece. Any way you slice it, this dish will sweeten your Fourth of July.

I’ll write more about our picnic after the event. It features fabulous foods, games, a rubber-duck race, and convivial company. Meanwhile, happy Independence Day to all! Be sure to pursue happiness on Saturday………


Ingredients:

for the berries:

1 quart strawberries
sugar as needed

for the shortcake:

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 2 tablespoons melted butter

for the topping:

butter as needed
1 cup heavy cream, whipped (and sweetened if you really need to do that!)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicone.

For the berries: wash and hull the strawberries. Save out 6 to 8 berries for a garnish. Sprinkle sugar over them as needed (this will depend on how sweet they are—you’ll just have to sacrifice yourself and taste them!). Set them aside to juice up while you make the shortcake.

For the shortcake: in a large bowl stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut it in the shortening with knives or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Whisk together the buttermilk, egg, and vanilla, and stir them into the flour mixture. Mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board, and knead it 8 to 10 times. Shape the dough into a circle that measures 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and place it on the lined cookie sheet. The trick in the kneading and shaping is to be VERY gentle with the shortcake dough; if you abuse it, your shortcake won’t puff up beautifully as mine did. (Of course, I employed my secret ingredient—my sister Leigh—who has artistic hands!)

Brush the top of the shortcake with melted butter. Bake it for 15 to 20 minutes, until it is a light golden brown. Cool it on a wire rack. It will look like a delicious giant biscuit or scone.

When you are ready to eat the shortcake put it on a platter and carefully split it with a knife into two horizontal pieces. Butter the cut pieces.

Place the bottom half of the biscuit on a plate, and spoon half of the strawberries on. Top with the other shortcake half, and put on the additional strawberries. Top with whipped cream and the six reserved berries.

If your shortcake didn’t rise sufficiently, forget about cutting it in half and just butter the top. Place all of the strawberry mixture, the whipped cream, and the reserved berries on top.

Serves 6 to 8.

Strawberry Lemonade

Happy July! Welcome to a post about the perfect summer drink. I know strawberries are about to disappear from the fields for this year so I give you permission to make it with frozen berries once the fresh ones are gone.

On a recent trip to Texas I visited Central Market, a store that didn’t exist when I was in graduate school in Austin. If it had been around then, I might not have been able to make myself leave! I lingered over Fresh Texas corn, beans, peaches, and blueberries—not to mention other gorgeous produce, wine, meat, seafood, and cheese.

The folks at Central Market were giving out samples of strawberry lemonade—a refreshing pink beverage that made the 100-degree heat in San Antonio a lot more bearable. I decided to make some as soon as possible and asked for basic instructions. They said that they strained the strawberries so I strained them in the version below, although I don’t think you really have to; after all, one eats all but the hull of strawberries normally.

My version is tartly refreshing, although Central Market’s tasted more of strawberries. Next time I make it I’ll try using twice as many berries. In the meantime, I was pleased with this recipe, which also makes terrific frozen pops.

Ingredients:

2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 cup strained lemon juice (about six large lemons or 8 small ones)
the zest of 1 lemon
2 cups hulled and chopped strawberries

Instructions:

In a 1-1/2-quart saucepan, heat the water and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Add the lemon juice and zest, and remove the pan from the heat. Cool this mixture to room temperature, and strain out the zest.

In a blender or food processor puree the strawberries. Strain them, and add them to the lemonade. Chill until ready to use.

Makes just over 1 quart of hot-pink lemonade.

Annabelle and Michael liked the lemonade frozen into pops.