Alice Parker's Ponder Heart Herb Dip

Image by Lee Peters, adapted from cover art, Vintage Paperbacks, 1954 (original artist unknown)

Charlemont, Massachusetts, is a musical town.

With only about 1300 residents it manages to support a summer chamber-music series, Mohawk Trail Concerts, as well as a yearly reggae festival and frequent performances by singer Charlotte Dewey, the co-owner of and spirit behind the Charlemont Inn.

The town has never hosted an opera, however … until now.

On Friday and Saturday, a concert production of The Ponder Heart will debut at the Charlemont Federated Church. The opera was composed by Alice Parker, a splendid musician and a loyal NOT (neighbor of Tinky).

Eudora Welty’s short novel The Ponder Heart first appeared in the New Yorker in 1953 and was published in book form the following year.

Alice adapted it into a short opera in 1982 with Eudora Welty’s blessing. Thanks to grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and several local cultural councils, the upcoming production will reintroduce this humor-filled musical gem to the public and provide a concert recording for future listening.

As I type, Alice’s Musicians of Melodious Accord are arriving to fill up houses all over Charlemont, Heath, and Hawley and get ready for their final rehearsals.

Alice Parker (courtesy of Melodious Accord)

I haven’t seen the opera, although I have read the novella—a delightful comic Gothic piece set in Mississippi in the 1930s.

Narrator Edna Earle Ponder is a character with whom I can identify. She tells anyone who will listen, “It’s always taken a lot out of me, being smart.” I have often felt this way myself.

Like me, Miss Edna Earle likes to make fudge and keep track of her neighbors. The proprietor of the Beulah Hotel in the small but bustling town of Clay, she knows everyone in town and has an opinion about everything.

It is her lot in life to mediate between her Grandfather Ponder and her lovable but impulsive-to-the-point-of insanity Uncle Daniel Ponder. In the course of the story, Uncle Daniel gives away just about everything he owns (including his grave site), marries twice, and goes on trial for murder.

It seems appropriate to me that this small-town story will be performed in another tight-knit community, and I look forward to seeing what Alice has done with Eudora Welty’s tale. I’m sure the composer’s ear for vernacular music will do justice to the saga of Edna Earle and Uncle Daniel.

Naturally, I have a recipe to share in honor of The Ponder Heart. I was hoping to write about divinity, a confection dear to the heart of both Eudora Welty and Edna Earle Ponder.

My friend Bill Kubasek’s mother Win gave me her divinity recipe, and I obligingly covered much of my kitchen in sticky sugar syrup in an attempt the make the stuff.

Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to get the hang of it yet. As Miss Edna Earle says in the story, divinity is NOT “the kind of fudge anybody can make.”

Part of the Sticky MESS!

I plan to return to divinity in December, when it should make a lovely holiday gift. Meanwhile, here is a recipe from the composer of The Ponder Heart for a simple, tasty, and fairly healthy dip. Alice often calls it “Grandma’s Dip” and keeps it in the house to use as a quick appetizer when company stops by.

It would be perfectly at home at the Beulah Hotel, where guests, including Miss Edna Earle’s beau the traveling salesman, could dip vegetables or chips in it while listening to Uncle Daniel wax operatic about his trials and tribulations.

Try it—and if you’re in New England this weekend, come see and hear Edna Earle, Uncle Daniel, and the townspeople of Clay in the New England premiere of Alice Parker’s Ponder Heart.

Performances will take place on Friday, October 8, at 7:30 pm and on Saturday, October 9, at 11 am. Tickets cost $20 and may be reserved by contacting Kay Holt at kay@aliceparker.com.


Alice’s Herb Dip

Alice pretty much wings this dip, and I did, too. Adjust flavors to taste, and add anything you think might enhance the mixture. Fresh herbs out of the garden are of course preferred, but you could probably throw in a few dried ones in winter.

Ingredients:

2 cups cottage cheese (low fat is fine)
1 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
seasoned salt, garlic salt, and/or seasoning mixes to taste (I eschewed the salt and pepper and threw in several sprinklings of my Zatarain’s spice mixture, as well as a dash of something from Penzey’s Spices called “mural of flavor” seasoning)1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 pinch cayenne pepper
a handful of chives, finely chopped
other fresh green herbs to taste (I used parsley, basil, and dill), finely chopped

Instructions:

Combine the cottage cheese and sour cream in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat in the remaining ingredients.

Place the dip in a bowl, and refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.

Serve with veggies, chips, sliced apples, or crackers. This dip also tastes great atop a baked potato.

Makes about 3 cups.

To Be Perfectly Frank: 100 Years of Frank Loesser

Tomorrow will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of American composer and lyricist Frank Loesser.

Loesser was born on June 29, 1910, in New York City and died in 1969. He wrote or co-wrote some of our most singable songs—“On a Slow Boat to China,” “Heart and Soul,” “Luck Be a Lady Tonight,” “Two Sleepy People,” “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” and about 700 others.

I’ve read a fair amount about Loesser, but I feel as though I don’t really know him. In books he comes across as contradictory. He rejected his family’s love of classical music yet longed to write an American opera. He was moody and quick to anger yet nurturing of his peers. He worked far too many hours yet loved parties.

The man I can’t quite find in print comes across in his music as brilliant, playful, and intuitive. He knew how to structure a musical number so that it was easy to sing yet constantly surprising. And he knew how to reveal character through song.

His Guys and Dolls, to me the quintessential Broadway musical, illustrates this attention to character. Nathan Detroit’s passive yet sincere love for his longtime fiancée shines through “Sue Me.”

Sky Masterson shares his love of the city and his secret longing for connection to others in “My Time of Day.” Shy-no-more heroine Sarah lets her wild side peal in “If I Were a Bell.” And Miss Adelaide’s language and lifelong dilemma are defined in “Adelaide’s Lament.”

The lament exemplifies one of Loesser’s other strengths—his ability to translate colloquial conversation into music and lyrics. Miss Adelaide’s voice goes up (as mine certainly would!) whenever she gets particularly agitated contemplating her perpetually ALMOST married state:

When they get on the train for NIAG’RA
She can hear CHURCH bells CHIME.
The COMPARTMENT is AIR CONDITIONED
And the MOOD sublime.
Then they GET OFF at SARATOGA
For the FOURTEENTH TIME!!!
A person can develop la grippe….

I look forward to learning more about Loesser tomorrow evening as I remain glued to the TV (well, actually, I’ll probably save some of the material for later viewing via TiVo) watching Turner Classic Movies’ salute to Loesser.

The lineup will include How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1967; star Robert Morse will co-host the TCM evening!), the 2006 documentary Heart & Soul: The Music of Frank Loesser, and several other films.

Although there are several gems to choose from I wish one of the films were Hollywood Canteen (1944), which features Bette Davis singing (!) the first Loesser song I ever performed, “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old.”

I couldn’t dream of emulating La Bette’s perfect diction. On the other hand, I can of course sing rings around her.

I’ll also learn about Loesser as I rehearse for—you guessed it—MY OWN LOESSER CENTENNIAL TRIBUTE WITH ALICE PARKER!

This will take place on Saturday, August 21, at the Green Emporium in Colrain, Massachusetts. (See fabulous poster below.)

Alice and I are still planning the program so if readers have a favorite Loesser song they should suggest it now!

Meanwhile, in tribute to tomorrow’s anniversary here is a special seasonal cocktail. It’s appropriate for two reasons. First, it was invented by my friend Michael Collins, the chef at the Green Emporium.

Second, I MUST have something to hold in my hand when Donald Freeman and I perform “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” another song that shows off Loesser’s way of turning conversation into song.

“Baby” is one of Loesser’s famous overlapping songs, in which characters (in this case “The Wolf” and “The Mouse”) sing complementary music and lyrics over each other.

According to Loesser’s daughter Susan, the composer and his first wife Lynn Garland Loesser performed this song privately many times. She quotes her mother as saying:

We got invited to all the best parties for years on the basis of “Baby.” It was our ticket to caviar and truffles. Parties were built around our being the closing act.

(Time Life)

Eventually, Loesser sold the song to MGM to be sung by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban in the 1948 film Neptune’s Daughter.

Lynn Loesser was deeply saddened, but “Baby” won her husband his only Academy Award for best song. (As time went by he managed to scoop up a couple of Tonys and a Pulitzer as well.)

On August 21 as Don (doing his best Ricardo Montalban impression) finishes the line, “Beautiful, please don’t hurry,” I’ll pop in with,

“Well, maybe just a half a drink more………….”

Let’s all raise our glasses to an American original!

“Baby, It’s NOT Cold Outside” Strawberry Rhubarb Daiquiri

Chef Michael Collins informs me that he was inspired to create this cocktail by my late neighbor Florette, who made a mean rhubarb tea.

I have tried it three ways—with rum (as described below) at his restaurant, with a little Grand Marnier at home when I couldn’t find rum, and in “virgin” form with a little pink lemonade for my young friend Audrey. I like it all three ways.

Ingredients:

for the base:

6 cups water
1 cup sugar
2 cups chopped rhubarb
2 cups strawberries, cut in half
1/2 lime
1 tablespoon grenadine (optional–for color; I found with really fresh fruit I didn’t necessarily need it)

for the cocktail:

1 cup cocktail base (see above)
2 ounces white rum
lime juice as needed for rimming
sugar as needed for rimming

Instructions:

Bring the water to a boil. Add the sugar and stir. When the sugar has dissolved add the fruit.

Reduce the heat to very low and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until the fruit breaks down. Toward the end of this process add the grenadine if you are using it.

Allow the mixture to cool. Remove the half lime (DO NOT FORGET THIS STEP!), and place the liquid in a blender in batches. Blend it; then strain it, first through a strainer (don’t try to push the fuzz down through the holes) and then through cheesecloth.

Place it in a jar and keep it refrigerated until it is needed.

To make a cocktail (or two): Place the rum in a cocktail shaker, and add ice. Pour in the cup of cocktail base. Shake.

Pour a little lime juice around the rim of 1 large or 2 small glass(es), and dip it/them in sugar so that the sugar coats the rim(s). Strain the drink into the glass(es).

The drink recipe serves 1 to 2. The base makes about 6 cups.

Audrey drank this cocktail with pink lemonade instead of rum.

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Oysters of Elegance

I was thrilled to find oysters a couple of days ago in the meat case at A.L. Avery & Son, my local general store.

Avery’s only stocks oysters between late November and early January, and I make a point of buying these expensive treats at least once during the holiday season.

My mother, our neighbor Alice Parker, and I threw them together into a simple New Year’s Eve supper at our home before going off to enjoy music and the company of good friends elsewhere.

I am not known for my modesty so I don't hesitate to mention that Alice and I brought the house down with our rendition of “Santa Baby” and other songs at the Charlemont Inn that evening!

But back to oysters: I’m always amazed to recall that oysters remained plentiful and cheap as late as the early 20th century.

When my grandmother was a freshman at Mount Holyoke College, she used to walk into the center of town and bring back inexpensive oysters for secret feasts in her dorm. (Eating in one’s room was emphatically NOT allowed at the college in 1908!)

In her old age she chuckled as she recalled encountering a faculty member on the main street of town as she returned from an oyster-fetching errand.

The professor engaged her in conversation for several minutes. Both the faculty member and young Clara studiously ignored the oyster liquor dripping from the paper bag my grandmother was clutching.

Oyster suppers were common occurrences in former days in my hometown of Hawley, Massachusetts, where voters often enjoyed them after Annual Town Meeting in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In a scrapbook from the Civil War era preserved by my late neighbor Ethel White’s family, a newspaper clipping describes an oyster-filled surprise party held for J.G. Longley, one of the town’s “old bachelor citizens.” According to the clipping Mr. Longley returned home from shopping to find

to his surprise and consternation that forty or fifty of his neighbors, whom he had never suspected of any ill before had taken possession of his house and were practically converting the old mansion into a saloon for cooking oysters, melting sugar, &c. At first he was somewhat disconcerted, being hardly able to decide whether he was himself or somebody else. He very soon recovered his sense, however, and satisfying himself that their motives were not of an incendiary nature, went in and rendered very efficient aid in disposing of the oysters and other delicacies with which the tables were spread, and joined quite freely in the “laugh and song that floated along” as the wheel of time went round.

By the mid-20th century overfishing rendered an oyster feast for 40 to 50 people unaffordable for most Americans. It also did damage to the environment as both oysters and their reefs fulfill important ecological functions.

I support the efforts of state and national groups to create new habitats for oysters—and I treasure the few oysters I eat each year!

I prepared this year’s ration with a simple recipe supplied by Alice. It came from her mother Mary Parker, known to neighborhood children as Gam.

The recipe definitely dates from the early-to-mid-20th century, using as it does a now underappreciated condiment, chili sauce.

The combination of ingredients sounded a bit odd, but it the flavors melded wonderfully, producing a stew-like concoction that was divine sopped up with the homemade bread Alice brought to the supper.

I prepared it in a 1-1/2-quart casserole dish, but I think another time I’ll try using individual serving crocks. Alice remembers that Gam served the dish this way.

I may also try cutting back on the chili sauce (maybe reducing the quantity to 1 cup) and adding a little more oyster liquor, which I love. It was pretty darn tasty as transcribed below, however.

Here's what the oysters looked like before we sprinkled cheese on top.

Gam’s Oysters of Elegance

Ingredients:

12 ounces chili sauce
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 pint oysters
1/4 cup oyster liquor
2 tablespoons butter
grated cheddar cheese as needed (we used about 2/3 cup)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In the bottom of a small casserole dish combine the chili sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Sprinkle the chopped onion pieces on top.

Arrange the oysters on top of this mixture, and toss on the liquor as well.

Dot the top of the oysters with the butter, and sprinkle grated cheese on top so that the oysters are covered (but not blanketed!).

Bake the oysters for about 25 minutes, until the cheese browns a bit around the edges.

Eat the casserole with spoons. Make sure you have plenty of homemade bread to soak up the yummy sauce.

Serves 4.

Coming next to In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens: NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS for this blog!

My Huckleberry Friend: A Johnny Mcrcer Tribute

Lyricist Johnny Mercer (Savannah Morning News)

A Johnny Mercer lyric is all the wit you wish you had and all the love you ever lost.

So said Frank Sinatra, one of the great interpreters of American song.

The lyricist John Herndon Mercer (1909-1976) would have turned 100 on November 18. His centennial is being celebrated with tributes all over the world and particularly in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia.

Naturally, I have to get in the act!

Composer/pianist Alice Parker and I will perform a local tribute to Mercer’s music on Friday, November 20, in Colrain, Massachusetts.

Mercer wrote the words to hundreds of memorable songs, including “That Old Black Magic,” “Something’s Gotta Give,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” and “The Autumn Leaves.”

Perhaps because he worked with many different composers, Mercer’s legacy is a little dimmer in the popular mind than those of lyricists such as Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, and Oscar Hammerstein II. Singers like me love to perform his songs, however.

The Sinatra quotation says it all. Mercer produced brilliant, lively numbers like “Accentuate the Positive” and funny ones like “Lonesome Polecat” from the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Sung by lonely woodchoppers, it offers one of my all-time favorite lines: “A man can’t sleep when he sleeps with sheep.”

And then Mercer hit the ear with a lyric of love and longing like “Blues in the Night” or “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Sometimes it’s all a singer can do to get through these songs without crying.

A couple of my favorite Mercer lyrics are among his more obscure works. I’m a sucker for a sweet tune called “Lullaby” from the short-lived Broadway show Saint Louis Woman, which he wrote with composer Harold Arlen in 1946.

It tenderly evokes memories of early childhood and laments our collective inability to recreate the feelings we had in our parents’ arms.

I also relish one of Mercer’s earliest songs, “Satan’s Li’l Lamb,” a collaboration with Arlen and lyricist Yip Harburg. The three threw it together for an African-American review in New York in 1932.

As soon as the great Broadway belter Ethel Merman heard it she ran out and recorded it. The music and lyrics are bluesy and sad but also funny and self-deprecatory, full of jazz rhythms and chords.

“Satan’s L’il Lamb” also winds up with a high, dramatic passage. High, dramatic passages are better than candy to us sopranos!

In addition to writing songs, Johnny Mercer was an influential performer and a pioneer in the recording industry.

He began his career as an actor and singer; he sang with both the Paul Whiteman and Benny Goodman Orchestras. In his prime he hosted regular radio shows in which he performed and promoted his own songs and those of his peers.

(Savannah Morning News)

In the 1940s he founded Capitol Records, the first major record company on the west coast and a music institution for years to come. It emphasized quality recordings, fairness to composers and musicians in paying royalties, and the development of new talent.

As both a writer and a performer Mercer had a knack for the vernacular that charmed his audience and knocked down doors. Savannah justly claims him as its favorite son; his temperament and artistic sensibility were authentically Southern.

His Southern streak carried disadvantages. Like his fellow sons of the South Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner, Mercer was an alcoholic.

Overall, however, his background stood him in good stead. It enabled him to blend much of the South’s character into his music: its slow pace, the African-American songs he sought out in his youth, the folk music of his Scottish-American heritage.

He wove the landscapes and the sounds of his childhood into his lyrics—the huckleberries he picked as a child, the meadows and the rivers in which he played, the “whoo, whoo” of the trains that passed through town, the lilt of his mother’s Southern accent.

I champion American popular music of all eras. I’m conscious, however that we don’t have lyricists like Johnny Mercer today—versatile poets with an ear for the rhythms of American life and the verve to promote their songs with humor and intelligence. As a historian, singer, and member of the public I’m enjoying getting to know his music better.

His song poems can tell stories as they do in “One for My Baby,” in which the narrator talks about his lost love to a bartender. They can act as traditional love ballads as in “I’m Old Fashioned.” Or they can string together images and sounds to convey a patchwork of emotions as in “Moon River”:

Two drifters, off to see the world.
There’s such a lot of world to see.
We’re after the same rainbow’s end.
Waiting ‘round the bed.
My Huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

All of us should take time on November 18 to sing a Mercer tune and or/listen to some of the music of America’s Huckleberry Friend.

The Johnny Mercer Foundation’s web site has a “Johnny Mercer Jukebox” listeners can play. And Turner Classic Movies is featuring his film music every Wednesday during November.

“Blues in the Night,” my program with Alice Parker, will take place at the Green Emporium on Friday, November 20, beginning at 8:30 pm. Pizza, cocktails, and dessert will be served. Reservations are suggested; the restaurant’s number is 413-624-5122.

Hooray for Hollywood!

This post doesn’t come with a recipe–but it does relate to food.

My neighbor Alice Parker and I will provide a little dinner cabaret next Thursday, August 20, on the patio at Chandler’s Restaurant at Yankee Candle Company in South Deerfield, Massachusetts.

Alice will be playing a borrowed keyboard–and I will be singing–from 6 to 9 pm as part of the restaurant’s 14 Years/14 Dollars anniversary celebration. Diners will get an informal barbecue supper and a chance to hear us perform for $14.

(Of course, people will probably want something to sip on and maybe a bite of dessert so the tab may come to a little more than that, but the evening is still a pretty good deal.)

Our show is titled HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD: SONGS FROM THE SILVER SCREEN’S GOLDEN AGE. We haven’t finalized the program yet. After all, we wouldn’t want to lose our freshness! I do know it will include a little Gershwin; a little Irving Berlin; and several songs with lyrics by the wonderful Johnny Mercer, whose 100th birthday is coming up.

If you’re nearby, please join us and sing along. If not, belt out a few tunes as you fix your own dinner that evening.

For reservations call 413-665-1277.

Maple Musings (and Maple Glazed Carrots!)

Pardon me if I wax slightly sappy in this post. I’m talking about maple syrup so a little sap doesn’t seem inappropriate.

I like to think of cooking as a folk science. The science part is indisputable. Most cooking tasks—whisking, boiling, baking—are simply applied chemistry. We read books to help us figure out just the right formulas to create using our culinary versions of test tubes. Sometimes we experience a scientific breakthrough and discover a new formula in the kitchen.

Nevertheless, many of our most beloved formulas for cooking have been handed down to us, like a family story or a favorite lullaby. Perhaps the best analogy is a folk song.

My neighbor, composer Alice Parker, uses this analogy a lot. She points out that we don’t know who wrote a song like “Wayfaring Stranger.” In fact, the very definition of a folk song is that the composer and lyricist are anonymous. A song like this belongs to all of us, and we re-compose it every time we sing it.

(A choir director for whom I once sang that very song at a Lenten service thought I re-composed it a little too much, in fact, but I stuck to my guns and my version of the melody.)

Folk songs cannot be copyrighted, although arrangements of them can. Similarly, it is impossible to copyright a list of ingredients, but one can copyright the words one uses in the directions for a recipe. We don’t value folk songs or recipes any the less because they are not “original.”

In fact, we often value them more because they have sprung up in different places and been modified as they go from singer to singer, cook to cook. We certainly value not having to come up with something completely new every time we get out the guitar or the saucepan.

Musical tradition and culinary tradition are miracles we celebrate everyday.

At this time of year I’m particularly grateful for the tradition of boiling down the sap of sugar maples. Just as it’s hopeless to pinpoint the very first person who ever opened his or her mouth and sang “I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger” (or “I am a poor wayfaring stranger” or any other version of this lyric) it’s impossible to figure out who first made maple syrup.

We assume it was a Native American since the original residents of New England were sweetening their food with maple long before Europeans arrived. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine how the first maple syrup came to be made. Did someone accidentally poke a hole in a tree that was near a cooking pot and then notice that the resultant food tasted extra sweet? We’ll never know.

I do know that my neighbors who have sugarhouses do what they do in large part because it is part of the history of their families and of this region.

I’m lucky to live in a place where a folk food tradition like maple still exists–where people are willing to do the hard work necessary to nurture the trees, maintain the sap lines, and boil (and boil and boil and boil) the sap. And I treasure the liquid amber they produce.

Here is another recipe that celebrates that tradition and the diversity of dishes one can make with New England’s folky, sappy mud-season staple.

Maple Glazed Carrots

I love stretching the uses of maple syrup beyond breakfast and dessert. These carrots get a lot of sweetness out of just a little syrup. (And they’re easy!) Feel free to use whole cut-up carrots instead of baby ones if you like. If you want to add to the feast of flavors, add a little minced fresh ginger to the maple mixture—or toss some fresh dill on top of the carrots when you serve them. I think the dish is pretty terrific as is.

Ingredients:

28 baby carrots
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons sweet butter

Instructions:

Bring the baby carrots to a boil in a pot of lightly salted water. Boil them until they are ALMOST done. (This won’t take very long.) Put 2 tablespoons of the water in which they boiled in a small sauté pan. Drain the carrots, discarding the remaining water, and rinse them in cold water to stop them from cooking any longer.

To the 2 tablespoons water add the maple syrup and butter. Heat this mixture until the butter melts. Add the carrots and toss them in the liquid. Continue to cook over medium-low heat, covered but tossing frequently, until the liquid almost evaporates (about 5 to 10 minutes). Serve immediately. Serves 4.

Tinky Goes Yankee

I don’t usually put posts on my blog that merely link to other web sites, but today I’m making an exception. The new issue of Yankee magazine is now OUT—and it features an article on me, Tinky Weisblat. I’m the star of the March/April “Best Cook in Town” feature by veteran Yankee writer Edie Clark.

Edie called last fall just before the semi-final rounds of my annual Pudding Hollow Pudding Contest. She needed to interview someone THAT WEEK and hoped it could be I, preparing an original pudding recipe. I was a little taken aback since I had to test seven other puddings for the semi-finals, but I love being famous. So of course I said yes and scrambled together a recipe for something called Cozy Apple Pudding.

We had a lovely visit despite the chaos. One of Edie’s greatest assets as a reporter is that she seems like an old friend the minute she walks in the door. She worked and chatted with my mother and me as we cooked and even sat through a rehearsal of my signature song for the Pudding Contest, “Find Me a Man I Can Cook For” by my neighbor Alice Parker. Of course, Alice joined us for pudding.

I encourage you to run right out and buy an issue of Yankee. In it you’ll find Edie’s interview with me; my apple pudding recipe (made with apples plucked from the tree in my front yard!); and the recipe for one of my favorite entries in the Pudding Contest, Greek Eggplant Pudding by Nancy Argeris.

If you must read the article right away, you may look at it online, but I think I look a little thinner in the print version so naturally I want to steer you toward it!

Besides, it’s a great magazine with terrific taste in cooks…….

Epiphany (The Color Purple)

With Epiphany only a couple of days away, I decided to try making a King Cake yesterday. I first learned about King Cake from French friends. The French enjoy a “Galette des Rois” on and around January 6. In France, the cake is mainly bought in bakeries. It is made of layers of puff pastry with almondy cream in between the layers.

In Louisiana, this concoction became a simpler King Cake. Both cakes celebrate the arrival of the three kings at the manger to visit Jesus, born twelve days earlier. Both also contain a surprise—a bean or crown in France, a plastic Baby Jesus in Louisiana. Whoever comes across the surprise in his or her piece of cake becomes king or queen for the day. In Louisiana, that person is also responsible for bringing a King Cake to the next feast. (Natives of that state eat King Cake from Epiphany straight through to Mardi Gras!)

Louisiana King Cake is basically a sweet, yeasty bread baked in the shape of a ring, festooned with toppings that reproduce the traditional colors of Mardi Gras–purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power. I had never made King Cake before. I looked to one of my favorite sources, King Arthur Flour, for suggestions.

I didn’t follow the recipe precisely, so I can’t blame KAF for the fact that my cake didn’t come out as well as I would have liked. (If you’d like to see the KAF recipe, here it is.)

Even so, I think I’ll try something a bit different next time I attempt one of these cakes. My cake didn’t rise very well, perhaps because of the cold weather. Worse yet, the overall effect was bland. My cooking may not be gorgeous as a general rule, but it is hardly ever bland!

Although the cake wasn’t perfect, the meal during which we ate it was pretty darn terrific. My guests all cheerfully helped decorate the cake. Different people were assigned the tasks of dying the glaze purple, green, and gold. My neighbor Peter, who has a wonderful visual sense, came up with a very creditable purple. In fact, he suggested that I call this post “The Color Purple.”

As a reward for his hard work, Lady Luck let Peter find the cake’s surprise. His piece included a quarter as I had neither a bean nor a Baby Jesus. (Don’t worry; I counseled my guests to chew carefully!) He is now King of Pudding Hollow—for at least the next day or two.

The experience of sharing even my imperfect cake with friends reminded me of the other, equally important definition of Epiphany. The word also connotes a moment of revelation. Eating with friends and enjoying the gorgeous pinkish/purplish light of winter in New England made me feel part of something bigger, both social and natural. And that’s a perfect feeling on Epiphany.

Alice was in charge of the color green.

The King of Pudding Hollow

A Sky Full of Epiphany

Note from Tinky MUCH later: I made a lovely king cake for Mardi Gras. Click here to see the recipe………

Simple Gifts

Thursday is Thanksgiving—and one of the simple gifts for which I’m grateful is my new audio recorder. It isn’t very big or very good (and it wasn’t very expensive!), but I hope that it will be useful in documenting some of my culinary adventures for this blog. Just now I’m using it to sing “Simple Gifts.”

I haven’t quite figured out how to adjust the audio settings; I know the sound quality or lack thereof will appall my audiophile brother. But days like Thanksgiving make me want to sing. Listen by all means (just click on the link below), and please don’t be too critical. I promise I haven’t yet given up my day job!

Sing along if you like—the louder, the better. As my neighbor Alice Parker says, music should be something we make, not just something we consume. And that’s a simple gift for which we can all be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving……….

"Simple Gifts"

Giving Thanks (Part I)

Like most of American history, our national Thanksgiving holiday is rich but complicated.

The myth of the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621 has undergone challenges in recent years, thanks to new scholarship and to the inclusion of more diverse voices in the telling of the American story.

We now know that the celebration wasn’t actually a religious Thanksgiving (which was more likely to involve fasting than eating) but more of a harvest festival. It wasn’t necessarily the first Thanksgiving in America; earlier challengers to this title have been identified in Texas, Florida, Maine, and Virginia. The settlers and Indians were as much keeping a wary eye on each other as offering friendship. Moreover, that event in Plymouth by no means started a regular tradition. The Thanksgiving that we celebrate (including most of its menu) is more or less a 19th-century invention.

Many American Indians justifiably resent the idea of a holiday that celebrates the survival of the English on these shores–and the help given to them by the Wampanoag tribe. Each year on Thanksgiving the United American Indians of New England organize a National Day of Mourning in Plymouth to remember the slaughter, intentional and unintentional, of Native Americans by European Americans.

I don’t want to downplay the importance of any of these challenges to the traditional story of Europeans and Indians giving thanks while sharing the fruits of the harvest in Plymouth. I believe that history is most meaningful when it is most complete.

Nevertheless, I do believe that what the capable curators at Plimoth Plantation carefully call “the harvest celebration in 1621” is an important story for all Americans, both as a real historical event and as a symbol.

As a real historical event it commemorates at least limited cooperation between Europeans and Native Americans. Both before and after that date, the two groups (particularly the Europeans) were indeed trying to wipe each other out. During the early days of the settlers at Plymouth and particularly during the three days of the harvest festival in 1621, however, they shared food, shared an acknowledgement of the bounty of nature, and tried to some degree to communicate with each other. Like personal moments, historical moments may be great without being perfect. This was one such moment.

The Thanksgiving story (not just the real event, but the myth) also shows us what a great people Americans can be together if we try to find commonality and share what we have.

Abraham Lincoln declared the first official national Thanksgiving in 1863, during the Civil War. In his proclamation he urged his countrymen not just to give thanks on the fourth Thursday in November but also to use the day to ask God to “heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.” Thanksgiving is ideally about coming to terms with the good and the bad in our nation—and moving on together.

On a more local level, Thanksgiving brings families and communities together. Like the nation and the world, family members don’t always get along. On Thanksgiving Day, however, we try to share goodwill along with the turkey and cranberry sauce. And we do our best to remember neighbors who don’t always have enough to eat by sharing with them as well, just as the Wampanoag and Puritans did.

As composer Alice Parker wrote simply in a benediction response she created for my own Charlemont Federated Church, “We give thanks. We count our blessings. We share them with all the world."

Amen.

In this post and the next I’ll share a few of the dishes that will grace my family’s table this Thanksgiving. None of them is terribly demanding to make. I hope they help spread the Thanksgiving spirit.

Chef Randy’s Dynamite Brussels Sprouts

This simple, seasonal recipe comes from The Artisan Gourmet by Randy Tomasacci, a book I mentioned in my last post. Randy is the demo chef for Bittersweet Herb Farm in Shelburne, Massachusetts, and his new book blends recipes using BHF’s products with humorous stories from his life and cooking career. This vegetable dish is a real winner and looks gorgeous to boot.

In case you’ve never prepared Brussels sprouts before, here are prepping instructions adapted from The Culinary Institute of America Cookbook: Cut off the ends of the stems. Trim off any withered or discolored leaves. With the stem facing up, cut a small incision in the stem of each sprout; this will help the vegetables cook more evenly. Soak the prepared Brussels sprouts in cold water until you are ready to cook them.

NOTE: If you can’t find the Bittersweet products in time for Thanksgiving and want to make this dish on your own, you may play with ingredients. The oil is a mixture of canola oil and olive oil with lemon oil (you could use zest!), bay leaves, peppercorns, and mustard seeds. You could probably get away with just the oil and lemon. The finishing sauce is soy based with a little water, canola oil, and lemon juice plus a trace of balsamic vinegar and herbs and spices to taste. Again, you could probably cheat with just soy sauce, water, and lemon juice. The overall effect is Teriyaki-like: yum!

Ingredients:

1 pound Brussels sprouts
2 tablespoons Bittersweet Herb Farm Lemon Pepper Oil
3 tablespoons Bittersweet Herb Farm Lemon Garlic Finishing Sauce

Instructions:

Blanch the Brussels sprouts for 3 minutes. Drain them and slice them in half. In a frying pan, heat the Lemon Pepper Oil, and add the sprouts to the hot pan. Sauté the sprouts until they are brown, reduce the heat to low, and add the Finishing Sauce. When the sauce is heated, remove the sprouts in their sauce to a serving dish. Serves 4.