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Classic Home Desserts

May 7, 2010 in Cooking + Baking, Reading, Spotlighting by Colleen | 2 comments

This, my friends is a slice of terrific banana cake.  I’ve adapted it from what I think is a pretty terrific book, Classic Home Desserts, by the late Richard Sax.  My number one favorite in this department, and one that I’ve had since 1994, longer than any other, of any kind, I might add.  As someone who is a great purger, this is saying a lot.  This book, no doubt, will be with me until it is coming apart at the seams, all 688 glorious pages.  It is full of great stories and historic recipes, not only a treasure to bake from but one to read, as well.  I’ve made countless recipes from it, all went off without a hitch and tasted even better (two other examples are here and here).  How is that for a product endorsement?  Fortunately, the book is not out of print, but the latest edition, from 2000, is, in my opinion, prohibitively expensive, at least on Amazon ($45 used – $99 new, zoiks!), so, if you’d like to give it a try, head to Powell’s (I’ve seen used copies for $25), your local library, or cross your fingers that they print another edition.

Anyway, to the recipe.  I’ve adapted it from his original, of course, for it is my way, but I honestly don’t think he (or you) will mind.  An additional bit, part of my love for this cake stems from the fact that it is made in a Bundt style pan.  Have I ever spoken of my love for the Bundt pan?  Dessert is somehow elevated when it comes out of a pan shaped like that, truly.

Banana Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened or, if you are short on time, grate it fine with a cheese grater

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup ripe mashed banana (about 2)

1/4 cup, plus 2 tablespoons sour cream or plain yogurt

Preheat the oven to 350.  Generously butter a 10″ tube or Bundt pan.  Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a small bowl.  Set aside.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until very light.  Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one by one; beat in the vanilla.  Put mixer on the lowest speed and add half of the flour mixture, alternating with the banana.  Add the remaining flour, alternating with the sour cream or yogurt, in batches.  Do not overmix.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50-55 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes.  Carefully unmold the cake and cool to room temperature.  Eat plain, dust with powdered sugar, or frost.  This is great with a caramel, vanilla, or chocolate frosting.  I’ll bet it would be great with a cream cheese frosting, too.  You can’t go wrong!  Like the picture, it also tastes great with coffee.

Enjoy!

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My Life in France

April 2, 2010 in Reading, Spotlighting, Writing by Colleen | 6 comments

Without intending to, I’ve been on a bit of a reading hiatus.  I’ve started a few that I actually intend on finishing, but just couldn’t fully get into them.  Thankfully, dear Julia came to the rescue.  I put my name in the library queue for this last year, probably in September, and it finally made it to the top of the list.  This can be blamed on the fact that, if you look at the sticker on the cover, I read the LARGE PRINT edition, of which there is only one copy.  But, alas, as silver linings abound under this red roof, the book arrived in the right state, at just the right time.  I felt so gloomy last Monday, wondering about my life.   Then, when I started to read this boisterously large print, it was like having Julia’s effervescent personality reading aloud to me, the words bright, lively, and heartfelt. The two of us sat in my favorite chair, while she told me all about  her remembrances of la belle France, delicious food, and the perils of finding direction a bit later in life, for much like me, Julia Child knew what she didn’t want before she knew what she wanted, and then everything just felt right.

The story moves in time, from her first view of France at Le Havre, at the age of thirty-six, to her last day, closing up her beloved getaway La Pitchoune for the last time in 1992.  From her first meal to her last, Julia describes, in glorious detail, what a joy it was for her to discover French food and immerse herself completely in the mind boggling detail of its creation, the painstaking formulation of recipes, and testing, so much testing!  Batch after batch of mayonnaise down the toilet, yet totally worthwhile for the knowledge and pleasure it brought her.  She also writes about the perils of the publishing world, of working so hard for so long only to wonder if anyone, beyond her loved ones, would ever see the merit of her work. (Gulp.)

Though I certainly got a kick out of her love for all things French,  in and out of the kitchen, it was the relationship between Julia and Paul that resonated most with me.  They were such a delightful pair: witty, caring, and fun, too.  They gave marvelous parties, sent charming Valentines (they weren’t organized enough to send cards at Christmas), loved each other beyond measure, supported each other through thick and thin, and were, quite simply, the best companion each could ask for.

A bit of humor and wonder in the end.  The picture shows the lunch I was enjoying as I was reading.  I set the book down, and realized, what I was eating – a kiwi, carrot, sliced spicy pickle, and a breaded Quorn patty, slathered in homemade “Come Back” sauce (mayo, yellow mustard, ketchup, and pickle relish) and topped with pickled peppers.  Though I made the pickle and the relish, the irony of my choice, and Julia’s certain horror, made me laugh out loud.  Truth be told, I can be a very lazy cook, and thought I might be doing the world and the environment a favor by eating Quorn.  It’s vegetarian and doesn’t make me feel awful, like soy.  Now I’m not so sure.  The stuff is made in England.  That’s a tad further than the farms where New Seasons gets their chicken (as our friend Hans would say, “Which is more worser?”).  With that in mind, I felt inspired to make and freeze some chicken with various seasonings for other lazy lunches.  I think she would approve.

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Made from Scratch

December 18, 2009 in Reading, Spotlighting by Colleen | Permalink

For a long stretch of time last year, I wanted to move to the country.  I thought it would be nice to have quiet, to see the stars shine, and a bit more space between me and some of my neighbors, without a view of their varying, ahem, decorating styles (snob).  I also thought raising my own livestock, like chickens and a pig, would be fulfilling.  I’d know where everything came from, what it was fed, and that it had a good life.  I have since changed my mind – loving the easy walk to Hawthorne, Woodstock, and downtown, the lure of the Academy Theater, and best of all, my dear friends who live nearby.

This, however, does not mean that I don’t like to occasionally wax poetic on the virtues of a hobby farm, and so I read about them in wonderful blogs and books like today’s.  In Made from Scratch, Jenna Woginrich writes in simple, yet beautiful prose about her life as a homesteader: baking, raising animals, growing vegetables, keeping bees, even making music on a fiddle.

What I liked best about the book is her honesty.  She’s never done any of this before, but is willing to “Research, Son” and ask questions (and for help) like nobody’s business.  As she writes about her experiences, we learn that, while there are many, many joys to a more earth driven and sustainable life, homesteading isn’t always easy, poetic, or romantic.  There are many hurdles and much to learn, like how to plant a sensible garden, keep bears from a bee hive, or to put down an animal in dire pain (the hardest part of all, I think).

It is a wonderfully rewarding journey, even if it was only vicarious.  She’s also got a blog if you’d like to see what she’s up to at the moment.  It’s pretty interesting: Cold Antler Farm.

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Still Here

November 13, 2009 in Being, Reading, Spotlighting by Colleen | 3 comments

I’m sitting in bed as I write this.  For one, if you recall, I don’t turn the heat on during the day, so it is rather cozy under the covers.  Two, I had my second chiropractic appointment yesterday, with my very first adjustment.  She made two quick pops of my spine.  My eyes were closed, and at the precise moment of the pops I saw a swirl of color, a vivid purple and yellow.  It was so dreamy and peaceful that it made me wonder why I ever feared this event.  She finished with some work on a very tenaciously stuck muscle – pushing, pulling, twisting.  It wore me out (but not the muscle – for the time being, it remains determined to stay in a tight knot), and now I am quite sore in the right upper flank of my back and contemplating a very light row in the basement after I’m finished with this post.

Which brings me to the book Still Here.  I was a very independent and conscientious kid, so much so that I was treated like an adult long before the time I actually was, giving advice, helping out.  I felt a certain measure of pride (I can do it by myself!), though sometimes a bit of anger, too, sometimes I just wanted to be a kid.  In any case, I got this sense that I with my will and determination, I could fix any problem, and, for the most part I did, and do.

Fortunately, the universe presents us with opportunities to learn, grow, and change, at the precise moment we need it, delivered via the ego crushing realizations that we are not in absolute control.  For me, it came with my surgery and, more recently, the fact that my back hurt nearly all the time, and I couldn’t move my arm upon waking in the morning.  For Ram Dass, his opportunity came when he was writing a book on aging, how to embrace it and the changes it brings, including death.  He was near completion but having a difficult time with the last chapter.  Then came a stroke (where he nearly died himself), and everything he had imagined or experienced from the outside became his own path: illuminated via paralysis, physical pain, the loss of words and the slowing of his speech, and, ultimately, the loss of his independence.   The book took on a whole new meaning because he became an “incarnation of wisdom” rather than a “wise elder.”

I really appreciated the book’s honest approach to this life and these bodies that eventually fade.  As Jim Morrison famously sang, “No one here gets out alive.”  Why deny that?  Why also deny that for most illnesses, we are never truly cured, only healed.  Our bodies and minds rarely go back to precisely what they were before.  His aphasia will likely never fade, nor will he ever play golf or be able to drive again.  I shall never have a uterus, right ovary, or fallopian tubes.   This need not be soul crushing, too.  Aging, illness, and the changing of roles take away the distractions of our ego and bring us closer to all that is precious in life. “That’s the ultimate in healing – “making whole” – because there’s no longer anything left out, including the sickness.”

As well, Ram Dass speaks of this process and how it provides the chance to receive help and love.  “The stroke created more love than I had ever seen before.  Even people who don’t like me sent me their good wishes!”  I could not agree more.  I can’t fix all that ails me.  I need the help of professionals and friends.  Thankfully, I opened myself to receiving it or would have missed out on some pretty wonderful experiences.  Shortly after my surgery, I was returning a bowl to my neighbor’s house.  She had fixed us a delicious meal to help us through.  It was one of those impossibly hot days of summer, over 100 degrees, and I made it to her house just fine, giving the bowl to her daughter, Maren.  Then, despite the fact I had only walked across the street, I nearly fainted from fatigue, and knew I needed help getting back home.  Maren held me tightly, and we walked across the street together.  In that moment, I felt so overwhelmed with love, kindness, and gratitude, as if I were being carried by grace.  This feeling was to return again and again throughout my recovery with the delivery of a meal, flowers, the washing of dishes, or a phone call.

Thanks to my own journey, and the help of this book, I see it ever more clearly.  Change (big and small) can be as natural as breathing, something to be embraced and experienced fully rather than feared.  Ride the roller coaster, but like a child – with wonder, anticipation, and exhilaration, the cherished help of friends (and good doctors), closing in on the divine.

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The Help

October 9, 2009 in Reading, Spotlighting by Colleen | 3 comments

I once heard an interview with one of the Grand Wizards of the KKK.  I was driving home from grocery shopping, and as I traveled the route, I remember a sense of being suspended, out of time, at what I was hearing.  I expected to hate the man speaking, to want to verbally assault him for the harm he and his cronies had inflicted upon humanity, but I could not.  The strange truth being that the man was not wholly evil, but rather as interesting and complex as you or I.  During the interview, his voice was measured and calm, discussing the everyday to the unusual and incomprehensible (at least to me).  I was especially struck by the way he spoke of his family, exhibiting the tenderness of a proud, protective, and loving parent.

It is with this same complexity and confusion that Kathryn Stockett approaches the nascent Civil Rights Movement in 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi.  Here, the narration changes between the voices of three distinct women: the young, naive, and white Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, and two very seasoned maids, Aibileen and her best friend Minny.

When Skeeter, an aspiring writer, is not offered a job at a publishing house in New York for her lack of experience, but the advice, “Write about what disturbs you,” she does just that.  Inspired by the latest trend among her circle of friends, the construction of an outdoor toilet for the help (under the guise of “safety”), she decides she will enlist the aid of her friend’s maid Aibileen (and anyone else they can find) to write about what life is like in the service of those who have no qualms about having their children raised by black people, yet worry about their health and the safety of their valuables in their presence.

Getting the stories of maids is a dangerous and entirely naive proposition because during that age, lives could be destroyed with a word.  Do not hire this woman because {insert complaint, real or imagined} and she’ll never work again, maybe her husband, too.  As well, and especially in Jackson, Mississippi, black women had virtually no rights, no ability to vote, no access to unemployment, Social Security, nothing.  They literally worked until their dying day, so for anyone to risk their livelihood to tell the truth of their experience was pretty astonishing, yet that is how change happens, a few brave acts that blossom into something greater than us all.

This is such a great read, steeped in history, disparity, and learning, yet the story is neither heavy-handed nor patronizing to either side.  Much like the man from the KKK, each character is colored by experience and preconceived notions, but there is so much love, compassion, and, for the most part, a willingness to concede defeat and open their hearts and minds to a more inclusive way of being that I couldn’t help but love them all.

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