The Power and Passion of Natasha Lowe

I apologize for my recent absence from these pages! I have been working on polishing my forthcoming book, Pulling Taffy, a project that has included recording the audio version of the book.

 

I’m still working on setting things up for the book so I’m afraid I won’t be posting a lot in the near future. But I CAN offer you this food-related story, which I wrote recently for the Greenfield Recorder.

 

“Follow your passion” is Poppy Pendle’s motto. Poppy’s creator lives by that motto as well.

 

A book for young readers (more or less eight to 12 year olds), The Power of Poppy Pendle is only a few months old but has already entered its second printing.

 

Poppy’s author is the English-born Natasha Lowe, who lives in an 1840 house in Deerfield, Massachusetts, with an entrepreneurial husband, four children, a busy kitchen, and a vibrant imagination.

 

Natasha’s passion for storytelling—and for life—comes across with gusto in her huge smile and her rapid conversational style. She told me in a recent interview that she inherited her love of narrative from her parents.

 

“My parents were amazing storytellers. My mum grew up in Lancashire, and she would tell us a story about a witch called Beady Eyes,” said Natasha. “I’ve always had a love of witches—not evil witches but good, fun-loving witches.”

 

Poppy Pendle is one such witch. The book opens with her birth in a bakery, a location that foreshadows Poppy’s passion. The child Poppy wants nothing more than to be a baker. Unfortunately, her parents detect that she has magical powers and want her to grow up to be a prestigious white witch like her Great-Granny Mabel.

 

They enroll Poppy in an academy of magic. She excels at charms and spells but would trade them all for a plate of cookies. She flies with grace but would rather wield a rolling pin than a broomstick.

 

Her parents ignore her protestations that she doesn’t want to be a witch, breaking Poppy’s heart by taking the oven out of their kitchen so that she won’t be distracted from her magical studies by baking projects.

 

Eventually, Poppy’s frustration and anger, combined with her talent for magic, lead her to go over to “the dark side.” She casts spells that put her at odds with her family, her teachers, and society at large. She must re-find her passion before she can right the wrongs she has done and move forward in life.

 

Poppy is a charming heroine, with enough spice in her personal recipe to enable boys as well as girls to identify with her. The book’s message of following one’s passion, as Natasha told me, “is one for everyone to hear.”

 

She added, “And if there’s a message in there for parents, it’s to listen to your children.”

 

Natasha explained that she has learned the value of listening from her varied children, three boys and a girl, who range in age from nine to 20. “You have to have faith, and you have to trust your kids.”

 

The lesson also came from her parents, who always had faith in her, she recalled.

 

She came to this country in her late teens on a student visa, looking for a place to learn creative writing. Fate changed her plans when she met the man she was to marry, and he quickly proposed. “It was one of those crazy, impulsive things,” she recalled.

 

She worried about the reaction of her parents. After a quick inspection, however, they told her, “He looks great for you. We have always taught you to trust your instincts … so, if it feels right, stay.”

 

Natasha’s husband had purchased the house on the main street of Historic Deerfield as an investment while he was a senior at Deerfield Academy.

 

“He showed it to me,” remembered the city-bred Natasha. “I said, ‘It’s absolutely gorgeous. But I’ll never live in the country.’”

 

The pair fixed the house up as a bed and breakfast and hired someone to run it. When that person was unable to honor the commitment at the last minute, Natasha found herself drafted as the temporary proprietor of the Tea House Bed and Breakfast.

 

After a year in Deerfield she was hooked. “Going through all the seasons [here], I realized I didn’t want to be anywhere else,” she told me.

 

The bed and breakfast lasted for about five years, and then, in Natasha’s words, “the guestrooms started filling up with children, and it was hard to offer romantic getaways with toddlers running around underfoot!” The house was a family home rather than a B&B from then on.

 

Natasha had always been interested in writing and had had a few short stories published in her youth. A few years ago, when her youngest child, Juliette, started kindergarten, Natasha decided that she didn’t want to look back at her life years later with regret.

 

“If I was going to [be a writer] and take myself seriously, I had to just sit down and start sending stuff out,” she said. “I was really lucky. I got a wonderful agent quite quickly. She’s been in the children’s writing field for many, many years.”

 

Despite this luck, it took a few years and a few rewrites before The Power of Poppy Pendle made its way to Simon & Schuster, where esteemed children’s book editor Paula Wiseman fell in love with the book.

 

Wiseman’s main request was one that fit perfectly with Natasha Lowe’s vision of the book. She asked whether the author would consider adding some of Poppy’s recipes as an appendix.

 

Natasha launched herself into recipe testing (she admitted that she tried so many batches of lemon bars that today one of her sons refuses to eat them), and the final book now offers ten tempting recipes, including the cupcake recipe below.

 

I asked Natasha about the origins of Poppy’s story. She explained that it all began with a stone goose her husband brought home one day from an auction and placed in the garden. “It does look really, really real,” said Natasha.

 

Her then four-year-old daughter Juliette wanted an explanation for the goose’s surprised expression.

“I said maybe a witch had put a spell on it,” her mother explained.

 

Of course, Juliette wanted to know about the witch … and on the spot Natasha came up with the story of a young witch who was upset because she wanted to be a baker, not a witch.

 

“Suddenly, I knew I had to write that story,” recalled Natasha. “It was almost given to me fully formed. I actually raced inside and started working at my computer.”

 

Today Natasha is enjoying the task of publicizing her book—talking to children, adults, and even seniors about Poppy Pendle. She is also working on several new writing projects. “I’m never short of ideas!” she told me with a smile.

 

 

Poppy Pendle’s Coffee Cup Cakes

 

Courtesy of Natasha Lowe

 

Poppy Pendle dreamed up these delicious treats after drinking her first cup of French brewed coffee at her favorite bakery. Natasha told me that in England a “coffee cake” is a cake flavored with coffee rather than something to accompany a hot beverage.

 

Ingredients:

 

1 tablespoon milk
1 tablespoon espresso powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons self-rising flour (or you can use regular flour and 1-1/4 teaspoons of baking powder and mix them well before adding to the batter)
1/4 teaspoon salt

 

Instructions:

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

 

Put the milk into a little dish (a small china ramekin is ideal) and warm it in the microwave for about ten seconds. If you don’t have a microwave, just warm some milk gently in a saucepan and measure out 1 tablespoon into a little dish. Sprinkle the espresso powder over the milk, and stir to blend.

 

If there is a food processor in your home, ask an adult to help you set it up and whiz all the cake ingredients together, including the espresso-flavored milk. Then go to the pouring and baking step.

 

Otherwise, put your stick of softened butter into a large bowl, and, using a hand-held mixer, whiz the butter around until it is nice and fluffy. Pour the sugar on top and beat together with the butter until well blended. Go slowly at first because you don’t want sugar flying all over the counter.

 

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. You can ask an adult to help you with this if you like because you don’t want bits of eggshell in the batter. Add the vanilla extract, then the self-rising flour (or flour and baking powder) and the salt and mix quickly again. You don’t want to over mix the ingredients or your cakes will be tough.

 

Now, mix the powerful espresso flavored milk into your cake batter, scraping around the little dish to make sure you get it all in. The batter will turn a rich coffee color and smell delicious.

 

Arrange 12 paper cup-cake wrappers inside a muffin tin or, if you want to make miniature cup cakes, you will need about 36 mini paper wrappers for a mini muffin pan. Fill each cup halfway with cake batter, and bake for 16 to 20 minutes for regular cup cakes, 9 to 14 minutes for minis. You might want to ask an adult to help you get the cakes into and out of the oven. Let cool them on a wire rack.

 

Makes 12 regular sized cup cakes or about 36 mini cup cakes.

 

Coffee Frosting

 

You can make this while the cup cakes are baking.

 

Ingredients:

 

2-1/2 tablespoons milk
1-1/2 teaspoons espresso powder
1 stick softened butter
1-1/4 cups confectioner’s sugar
as many chocolate-flavored coffee beans as you have cup cakes

 

Instructions:

 

Pour the milk into a tiny dish. Warm the milk in the microwave for about 10 seconds and sprinkle the espresso powder on top. Stir to blend.

 

Put the softened butter into a large bowl and shake the confectioner’s sugar on top. Using a big wooden spoon or a hand-held mixer (Natasha likes to use a hand-held mixer because it makes the frosting really smooth and creamy), gently stir the espresso flavored milk into the mixture, and blend together until soft and creamy.

 

Go slowly to begin with; otherwise you will have sugar all over your counter! If you want a softer frosting, just add a drop or two more milk.

 

Using a dinner knife, smooth the frosting on top of the cup cakes and decorate with a coffee-flavored chocolate bean.

 

Just for fun, here's a look at my homemade recording studio....

 

 

 

Apple-Cheddar Pie

Strangely, I’m not a major fan of pies, particularly apple pies. (I hope this doesn’t make me un-American.)

Nevertheless, every once in a while … particularly at this time of year … I feel impelled to bake an apple pie.

Yesterday was gray, and I was expecting company for supper. I hadn’t gotten very far in my menu planning. I knew we were having meatloaf; it was definitely a meatloaf kind of day. I also knew I needed to come up with some vegetables and a dessert.

One of my guests emailed me to say she would be happy to take care of the vegetables. So I was down to dessert.

I looked out the window for inspiration and was greeted by our apple trees, bursting with fruit.

The trees have been here much longer than we have. Most years they are purely decorative, bearing just a few mealy, wormy apples. I add them to applesauce out of habit but don’t eat or cook them much other than that.

Every three years or so, however, the fruit fates smile upon us and we suddenly find ourselves with enough apples to use multiple times. It turns out that 2011 is one of those years.

I took Truffle out for a quick walk, and in no time at all we had enough apples in our basket for a pie.

I was given this recipe many years ago by its creator, Rose-Ann Harder, who used to own a bakery in Greenfield, Massachusetts, called Rose-Ann’s. Her apple pie was one of her signature desserts. Somehow I never ended up trying it out until yesterday.

Knowing that many people accompany apple pie with a wedge of cheddar cheese, Rose-Ann incorporated cheese into her pie crust.

The cheese made the crust a little hard to roll out—at least for me, never the most deft of rollers. The difficulty was exacerbated by my lack of pastry flour. I substituted all-purpose flour, which may have made the crust more difficult to handle.

By the time the pie baked, however, the crust looked charmingly homespun rather than ragged. And it tasted perfectly autumnal, adding its savory flavor to the sweet filling.

Rose-Ann's Apple-Cheddar Pie

Ingredients:

for the pastry:

2/3 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups pastry flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
ice-cold water as needed

for the filling:

6 cups apples, sliced
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tablespoons flour, plus a bit more if the apples are very juicy
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Cut the shortening, flour, and salt together with a pastry blender until they form nice crumbs. Add the cheese, then add cold water a bit at a time until the dough cleans the bowl. Roll the dough into two 9-inch crusts, and place the first crust in a pie pan.

Combine the filling ingredients, and place them in the pie pan. Cover with the other crust, and pierce air holes in the top. (Rose-Ann likes to draw a little apple on top, but that's beyond my skill.) Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, until the apples are tender and bubbling out through the air holes. Serves 6 to 8.

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!)