To the Lighthouse

I set out to visit the Grosse Point lighthouse in Evanston today. Kate went a few days ago with her husband and posted pictures on her blog. Her pictures display a place grand, remote, and shrouded in love. Their smiles cover up their secret, which is whatever it is that makes them so happy to be together and in love.

I was going to bake an apple pie, but I found myself putting on my coat and scarf. I had to go to the lighthouse first.

It takes an hour on public transit to get to the lighthouse. I bought a coffee and brought my book, Milan Kundera's Identity. It is an intelligent, erotic story about a couple as they grow distant and unfamiliar to each other, misunderstanding the other's intentions at nearly every step.

I finished Jane Eyre yesterday. It made me wonder if Charlotte Bronte ever married. At the end, Jane says:

"I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest--blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am; ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh."

Kundera's protagonist provides a sharp contrast:

"Love as an exaltation of two individuals, love as fidelity, passionate attachment to a single person--no, that doesn't exist. And if it does exist, it is only as self-punishment, willful blindness, escape into a monastery. She tells herself that even if it does exist, love ought not to exist."

On the walk from the el stop to the beach I felt oppressed by the largeness and the beauty of the Evanston homes on either side of me. I felt acutely that I would not end up in a place like that, and it made me depressed. I imagined living out my days in a tiny apartment in a city. I missed my family, and Kentucky.

When I wasn't expecting it, the lighthouse was there in front of me. Once there, I found I didn't care to look at it for long. I walked around and towards the lake, immense, crashing, and beautiful through the twisted black branches of the bare trees. I walked out on the sand and stared at the water. Being on the lake reminded me of my first summer in Chicago. Once, during a terrible storm, I walked out to the edge of a barrier and stood there as the waves crashed around me, reckless, alone, and free. The next day we heard about a Northwestern student who had been swept into the lake and drowned, and I wondered if he had gone out like me, to push his limits, to dare himself.

Standing on the dirty sand, blocks of ice to my left and the blue-gray water before me, I started laughing. I was so happy to be here, alone. I laughed like a crazy person, without real mirth but loving the sensation. I faced the lake and I started singing an old disco song about picking up the pieces and standing up, strong and defiant.

I walked back to the el, not feeling oppressed by the houses anymore. I remembered: My uncle at the lake after his son's graduation; Christopher's story of his baptismal dip in Lake Erie after his last breakup; and my dad and me having lobster bisque at a tavern--he was telling me that life is like water, and sometimes you're up at the crest of a wave and sometimes you're just even, but there are always times when it rises up again.

I went home. The feeling of freedom and elation didn't last once inside, and I made the pie with fury and bitterness. As I rolled out the dough and the butter kept sticking to the rolling pin and I just couldn't get it right, I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown. But when I finally got it and was sprinkling the sugar and spice mixture onto the apples, the smell rose up and suddenly I was in my grandmother's house. It was unbidden and I couldn't think where or when the memory was coming from. I imagined her making pies. I imagine to her it was more a matter of routine. Of course, somewhere inside her she did it out of love for her family, but it was because it was just the thing one did. You were a grandmother, you were a woman, so you made pies for your family. No big deal. It wasn't an event for her. It's just a pie.

The pie just came out of the oven, bubbling. It smells sweet and delicious, and I'm going to share it with people I care about.

Elise "Monet" Cowin

She's wearing a gramophone horn

 I met Elise my senior year of college at Goucher. We were in a composition theory course and a Virginia Woolf seminar. She was a thoughtful, intelligent classmate, and I respected her. We slowly became friends. Her figure, grace, and color scheme had me calling her "Elise Monet:" she looked like she had just stepped out of a painting.

Elise walking down Van Meter

Our friendship cemented when she said she'd like to visit me in Cleveland and actually did. Christopher and I returned the visit, staying with her in Chicago, leading to the move here. She's a woman of her word. Reserved with her emotions, but strong in her friendships.

She has given me a lot in terms of fun, creativity, and inspiration. Her ideas for projects are like a cool wind blowing my mind open. Her sense of humor catches me off-guard, and I love the weird things she gets excited about, like Elizabethan collars.

Rocking that post-op style

She works tirelessly, obsessively on her art, with many late nights, aided by glasses of red wine, and early mornings, with the necessary tiny cup of espresso. Her big black notebook is a staple of her days, with its pages full of notes comprehensible only to her: snatches from Woolf, Bauhaus performers, eccentric Italian costume designers, and scribbled drawings of her own perpetual motion machine.

Performing "The Weight of My Right Leg" in 2013 at the Sullivan Galleries

Her work method sometimes takes a circuitous route, as she works from feeling and intuition rather than a methodical plan laid out with measurements and little details. But no matter the route, it arrives, and lands. What I like about her art is that it has an enormous respect for the audience, those people that come to shows to be inspired, or moved, or even "just" entertained. She won't reward your patience and time with repetitive motions that don't develop, or a piece where nothing happens, and there's never some masturbatory confessional element. She creates something out of disparate pieces, choreographs them, and entertains and enlightens her audience. Her work always gives people something to discuss, and it's rarely what I expect to see. Check out her website for more of an idea: www.elisecowin.com

Her parents are so clearly responsible for how their daughter turned out. Her father is passionate, intelligent, and his sense of humor is sometimes opaque and for that reason, a little intimidating. Her mother is equally matched, with the addition of loveliness and grace. She will calmly dish out quips, which can be sharp, but never cutting. Elise and I were walking around Bucktown one day, and she was telling me she had been emailing a certain gentleman she'd liked for awhile. "And he's writing back?" I asked. She laughed and said I was just like her mother, which I took as a very high compliment.

Saturday will be Elise's birthday, and since I will be at a chorus retreat, we are celebrating today. I made her the pie of her choosing, and bought her a little succulent.

Elise Playlist
The Lady is a Tramp - Frank Sinatra
I Could Have Danced All Night - Chet Baker
Here You Come Again - Dolly Parton
You're The Top - Patricia Barber
Tea for Two - Pink Martini
A Fine Romance - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
Mack the Knife - Peggy Lee
Blue Velvet - Lana Del Rey
Fur Elise - Beethoven
Sister (Miss Celie's Blues) - Suede
Royals - Lorde
Sweet Home Chicago - Eric Clapton
Bend it! - Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

Elise's Birthday Pie
Chocolate Mousse with graham cracker crust: reminds you of childhood.

Diary of a Dairy Queen

I have a cold this weekend, so I cancelled my plans yesterday and stayed in watching The Office, which wasn't a bad way to spend a sick day. Today I went to get the ingredients for my baking project, which is a dairy extravaganza. For example, it calls for FIVE 8oz packages of cream cheese. Even for someone who struggled with his multiplication tables, that's a big number. I don't want to think for too long about the fact that what I'm making takes forty ounces of cream cheese, plus heavy cream, butter, and sour cream. I stood there in the grocery store looking at the rectangles of cream cheese and thought: "My goodness. Eight is quite a large amount of cream cheese to buy all at once," and put eight packages into my cart. Again, it wasn't until I was on my way home that I thought over my list in my head and remembered that it called for FIVE 8oz packages. I have more cream cheese in my fridge than I've had in several years.

Should have bought bagels.

Today I'm going to make a cheesecake. What does that make you think of? Whenever I think of cheesecake, I think of The Golden Girls, where any problem, no matter how big or small, could be tackled with your housecoat-wearing friends and a cheesecake. When I was in high school and getting interested in writing, my parents told me that if I end up writing for television, I should make sure it was like The Golden Girls. I didn't watch an episode until my junior year of college, when I was studying abroad in Norwich, England.  I became hooked, and watched all eight seasons (thanks YouTube!) through the course of my year. I watched the last episode just days before leaving England.

Cheesecake makes me think of takeout lasagna and Tangueray in my sock drawer.

Making a cheesecake is pretty involved. You mix part of the crust but then refrigerate for an hour before you continue. You have to bake part of it, then put part of the mixture in, then a separate mixture goes on top. There are lots of fluctuating temperatures and in-and-out of the oven action. It gives me plenty of time to write between baking. Or play with Twinkle Toes, which is what I end up doing. He never gets bored playing, and it's fun to see him get better. He jumps a lot more, but sometimes does a funny twist and ends up landing on his side, heavily.

I'm headed pretty full-fledged into single cat man territory. When I go to a dinner party with other single gay men, I actually have the thought that I would rather be home with my cats, reading Jane Eyre. The guys at the dinner party spent the night talking about being home owners, eye creams, who's hot in chorus, and finding boyfriends on dating sites. I spend my weekends thinking about what I'm going to bake next, and would rather spend my nights curled up with my old cat than at a bar making small talk. Still, one must make some sort of effort, I suppose. I have almost decided not to go and adopt a third cat because...well, I guess it's obvious. You don't want to be the single, otherwise normal guy with three cats. Not until you really give up, at least.

Damnit. I left out the whipping cream and egg yolks. I actually opened the oven after ten minutes cooking, wondering if I could still mix them in.

Here is the finished creation:

and even without those two ingredients it's delicious. Off to watch Mad Men with Elise.

Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

There are many ways to describe what makes a cookbook. For one, statistics--number of pages, number of color photographs, number of recipes. And so on.

But there is still another element involved in this newest Good Housekeeping Cookbook--the same element that has been involved in every edition, beginning with the first one in 1903. That element is the people element.

Yesterday I slept in with the cats and woke up to voices in the living room. Elise's friend is photographing her for a journalism course she's taking. Elise is so photogenic, I bet the pictures will be beautiful. I had a headache and felt groggy. On my days off, I have to come up with reasons to get up in the morning. Clean the bathroom. Grocery shop. Feeding the cats is reason enough, and helps to order my days.

I went to the grocery shop and bought the ingredients for a bittersweet chocolate cake. I wanted a change from pies, and I'd used the first two recipes in the cake section. Bittersweet felt appropriate.

I didn't plan to bake. I thought I'd save it for today. But after scrubbing the shower curtain, cleaning the mirror, playing with the cats, and scooping litter, I was so bored. I read the section on cake-making tips and decided to go ahead and do it.

Here is the Good Housekeeping bittersweet chocolate cake with a marshmallow frosting and chocolate swirls:

love that seventies dishware!

Wow. Well, that is ambitious. Those photos are so optimistic. I wonder if anyone ever looks at them and thinks: Yep, mine'll look just like that. How does that even happen? I feel like you need more than your ex-boyfriend's two square cake tins and vegan butter substitute. I am just setting out to make a chocolate cake that isn't uneven, and maybe, just maybe, there won't be crumbs speckling the frosting.

Letters from readers tell us of their love affair with the Cookbook. With old editions that have been handed down from mother to daughter to daughter. For example, a recent letter speaks of a 1927 edition. "It has been in constant use all these years. The poor thing has finally given up. What can I do to hold it together for a few more years?

The first piece of advice Good Housekeeping offers, nay, demands of their good readers, is: DON'T SUBSTITUTE. But I don't even know what shortening really is (lard?) so I used Earth Balance again. I just don't know what the effect is with the change. The cakes are really flat. Look:

wut?

"Measurements must be exact, fool," says Good Housekeeping. Well, the teaspoon is in the bag with the cat supplement and I don't feel like rinsing it out so...eh, that's about a teaspoon. And about three squares of unsweetened chocolate? About that amount of the semi-sweet chocolate should work. Right? Wait, why is the cake still white and why is it so flat? Must be the oven...

Then there are the younger women, just beginning their lives as wives and homemakers. One of these wrote us to say, "I will be married soon and I need to learn to cook something more complicated than frozen pizza, which is the extent of my present skill. I need a cookbook that tells me why and how--not just a collection of recipes."

On my way to Kopi Cafe to write this entry aaaaand take advantage of their half-priced bottles of wine (btw, the place doesn't have wifi, which is insane), I ran into Stevie. He's a young artist I met through Elise.  It serendipitous, since I had just been thinking of him. My phone doesn't keep phone numbers, so if someone hasn't text recently, I don't have the number. The other day I was wishing I had his number. Like a scene from a sitcom, there he was, just standing on a corner when I crossed the street. We hugged and he said he'd just been to Tulip, hoping to see me there. I invited him to join me for wine, but he couldn't. We kissed goodbye. It was lingering, and I immediately thought: I don't want to be this way. He then told me he had a boyfriend, but "he's in New Orleans, so they're open while he's away."

I'm not interested in that type of thing anymore. Honestly, I'm not sure I'm interested in much of anything anymore.

Baking offers a fantasy of an old-fashioned lifestyle. A home, a family, and routine. I like all those things, and when I'm not with my family I'm good at making family groupings where I am. For over a year Chris, Elise, Dudley, and I were my imagined family in Chicago. Now it's Elise, me, and the cats. It's a cozy little family. Maybe I should have stopped the above sentence at "Baking offers a fantasy."

And so this newest edition of our cookbook contains a great measure of inspiration from our readers. It is for them and for all those women across the country whose busy lives vary in many ways bu who have one great common interest--a dedication to keeping their families well and happily fed and to making food preparation a creative and satisfying experience.

The cake is small, but pretty.

And like my cat, Noreen, who has stared Death down with her big green eyes and said "Not yet," it's really tough. Great qualities in a cat, less so in a cake.

"I'll go when I'm good and ready."

I woke up this morning resolved to throw the cake away. When I came into the kitchen, Elise was there. "I'm going to have a great day," she said, "Because I started my day off with cake and coffee!"

Alright, cake, you win.

We put our new book into your hands with the firm conviction that it is the best cookbook ever.

Willie Mae Rogers
Director, Good Housekeeping Institute 1973

Vegan Blueberry Pie

Food?

Yesterday I woke up two hours earlier than usual to make a pie for that night's Oscar party. Wearing my kimono and listening to my Tea for Two playlist, I first fed my hungry, hungry hippos and then set about baking. The majority of the people I work with are vegan, which I think goes with the territory when you work in animal welfare, so it set up a new challenge for me. But pies are really vegan-friendly, as the only non-vegan ingredient in my recipe is butter. My coworker Sydney told me about the butter substitute Earth Balance, so it was easy. 

In my cookbook, blueberry cobber is listed as a tweak to the blackberry pie recipe, which led me to wonder what the difference between a pie and a cobbler is. Judging by the internetz, the difference between a pie and a cobbler is:
...
no one knows, and everyone makes up his or her own answer. I feel that one day, you know, I'll just stumble across the answer. For right now I'll say I made a vegan blueberry pie with what Good Housekeeping calls a cobbler crust. It was a pie bottom with a square in the center.

As recommended by Patrick, I knocked twenty degrees off the oven temp, and as recommended by my mother and my cookbook, I covered the edge with aluminum foil. Between those two and the butter substitute, my crust turned out a lovely golden-brown instead of crispy-charcoal. And of course this is the one pie I didn't get a picture of, but luckily Kate, my inspiration for this project, did. You can see it on her blog:

http://steadfastandyearning.blogspot.com/

It's part of her entry for today. Looking at it, I think that when I can make a decorative edge I will feel more satisfied about my crusts.

After I decided on making a pie for the party, I overheard two people at work talking about how they don't eat gluten, so I was pretty sure no one would eat my pie. But they did! I loved sharing something I've done with them. We laughed a lot, and I was surprised at how interested in the awards ceremony I was, especially considering I hadn't seen any of the movies. It's a weird sort of thing, when you see all these faces you recognize from movies and magazines and you feel like you know them, like they are a part of your life.

But the people who are in my life made the night truly great. I can't coherently write about the party, but I loved:

Coming into the kitchen and seeing Elise ready to go in her big trench coat, pink scarf, and my beret, finishing her martini.

Kate talking about her dream pie shop.

Looking at the back of Kady's head as she delivered her relentless snarky commentary. She makes me laugh.

Susanna in her primary colors, her "We Sing in Sillyville" outfit, standing in the doorway asking: "Beer?" Yes, please. She joked that she dressed for Pharrell's "Happy" performance.

Ollie stepping out to play the guitar and sing softly, beautifully.

Looking through Sydney's childhood photo albums.

Talking to Jenny about Animal Care and Control. She has so much passion. They all do. It's inspiring.

It was fun to see the faces on the screen, but I'm really enjoying getting to know the faces around me.