(Un)Traditional Peach Pie

Soundtrack: Connie Converse's So Sad, So Lovely, First Aid Kit's The Lion's Roar, Cary Ann Hearst's "American Made Machine" and "Are You Ready to Die?," Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" and "Big Yellow Taxi," Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust," and Mumford & Sons' "Awake My Soul."

Yesterday my friend and supervisor, Kate, came over and we made a peach pie. I anticipated it would be pretty standard, a traditional pie, sort of like the way this woman describes baking a perfect peach pie: Farmers' market peaches, lattice-top pie crust, whole wheat flour to add an "earthy note that complements the sweet peaches."

I bought seven peaches from La Casa del Pueblo, the largest grocery store near me. The recipe calls for six cups, so I thought seven would be plenty, and probably leave some over.

She came in, looking fresh and lovely, her hair pulled back in a bun, wisps of brown hair around her neck and face. Kate is natural and easy, and exudes peace and kindness. It is easy talking to her. She washed the peaches, and I peeled them. Peaches have such a special scent: They are warm and sweet--summer embodied. I love their soft skins (the ones I was slicing away with a little knife and tossing into the garbage).

All seven peaches added up to about five cups! What! We walked to the corner market, which of course didn't have peaches, so we bought a mango. As I mixed the flour, salt, and oil to make the crust that I padded down into the pie plate (rolling it out didn't work out so well), Kate mixed the peaches, mango, flour, sugar, and cinnamon together in a big red bowl. She couldn't find the lemon juice in the fridge (it was with the vinegars, oops) so she cut up and juiced a lime instead. When the delicious-smelling mix was in the pie crust, I pressed pie dough into pieces between my fingers and dappled the crust.

While it baked at 425 for forty minutes, we went outside to look at my downstairs neighbor's beehive. Kate loves bees (BEES!).

We ate our slices of pie in the little park across the street. The pie is tasty--messy, a little tropical, and sweet. The crust is savory and measures out the sweetness of the peaches and mango.

clouds in my coffee

Adamo Photography

It's coming up on the end of my weekend, and I am sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of cold coffee, pleasantly drained. As I write, the sky darkens, more clouds blanket the sky, and the cute girl-next-door to the Sears Tower puts on her brilliant party hat for the night.

Yesterday, the inspiring Kate (whose blog Steadfast and Yearning is a daily celebration of life), my friend and supervisor, helped me pick up this beautiful, special cat from Evanston:

Her Tree House name is "Nimbus," which originally I dismissed as too masculine and also, kind of expected for a big white cat. Nimbus is a fluffy cloud about to erupt in rain, hail, snow, or sleet (but still won't deter your friendly United States Postal Service). 

When we were headed north into the gorgeous Evanston, Kate and I were headed right into the enormous gray clouds about to break into a torrent. We were caught in the storm as we ran for cover. How appropriate, we agreed, for it to be raining on the day we pick up a cat called Nimbus. 

Last week, Howard picked Coffee Cloud Cake for us to bake today. He is a coffee fiend, so it's not a big surprise he chose a cake that called for a cup of cold coffee. It didn't hit me until Kate and I were driving down Lake Shore Drive yesterday that I was making a cake with the word "cloud" in it. Elise says coincidences tell you that you are on the right path. Apart from being as fluffy as a big ol cottony cloud, the cat's growl is like the ominous roll of thunder, and her strike is a fast as lightning. 

 Howard, Elise, and I made the cake together this afternoon. Elise said it was nice, because I just told them what to do. It was so fast, with me reading the recipe, Elise whipping the ingredients, and Howard measuring them into the bowls. 

I went to Target to buy a tube pan, and I picked up measuring spoons as well. When Howard came over, they were the first thing he saw, and he deflated a little. He had hunted around until he found measuring spoons that matched our measuring cups. I am so touched! 

I believe the coffee cake is called a cloud cake because of the whipped egg whites which make it very light. It has chopped walnuts in it, which give it a nice raw crunch. It bakes for an hour, and when the top springs back when touched, you turn the pan over on a bottle, like so:

a rice vinegar bottle in full bloom

Howard at all times was sure it was going to fall and break every single thing in the kitchen, so to break the horrible anticipation we all went out for tacos and margaritas. When we got back and slid a knife between the cake and the tin, we shared it at the kitchen table. It came out of the tin a little rough looking, but I wasn't concerned. 

Elise left tonight for Poland, where she is giving a talk at a conference on puppets. They say she pulled some strings to get there, and is going to have a ton of fun, no strings attached (har har har).

The cats were really curious about this cake. Noreen lifted her face and sniffed delicately, while Twinkle Toes just went for it. 

Elise kept an eye on him, but he was seriously interested in her slice. 

naughty twink!

It was good, and I look forward to having it tomorrow with my morning coffee. I think it's a little sweet, and would probably cut down on the sugar if I made it again. 

maybe if i reach for it with my lucky paw she won't notice

It was a beautiful weekend. I spent time with people I really care about, in a city I love the more I spend time in it. 

Baking with Howard! Or, Howard and I discuss Vengeance Baking

Last night Howard and I watched the eerie 1959 French film Eyes Without a Face by Georges Franju, and the atmospheric black-and-white images go well with the name of the cake we baked today: Silver-White Cake with Snowpeak Frosting. Doesn't that make you think of the White Witch in Narnia? Or that faceless girl above? Snow White in a blizzard? 

One thing I love about Howard is that he is a connoisseur of horror. Any horror movie I love (which I probably heard about here), he's already seen, so he introduces me to new things to get excited about, to inspire me, new things to love. 

Dear Mitch, who knew just what I needed after baking with me a few weeks ago, gave me a gorgeous hand-mixer as a housewarming gift, along with beautiful red mixing bowls and a set of matching spatulas. The mixer--my god, the mixer--is amazing. It rendered baking an absolute snap! *cue the manic housewife head tilt, huge smile, all teeth, waving a whisk*

The butter I bought from Trader Joe's went mysteriously missing (the joy of living with roommates), and my baking powder must have been lost in the move. We had just enough butter to substitute for shortening, and Howard ran out to the corner market to buy me some baking powder. I like what he bought, because the label looks like a tarot card design. 

oh god, the effort of walking to the corner store!

Silver-white cake batter is really silver-white. I wish I had taken a picture, because I don't know why I thought the cake would come out still platinum as my coworker Susanna's hair. And really, it's just the top that is browned, of course. The inside is white, which made me consider cutting off the outside layers next time. Too much? The cake is super light and fluffy from four whipped-up egg whites (thanks, Mitch!). It takes just twenty minutes to bake, and came out springy, edges not in the least crusty or crumbly. 

Room-temperature egg whites. Whole milk. Give the pans a shake and a smack to even out the batter before putting them in the oven. These are the things I've learned from other people. 

Howard told me about a high school girl who baked cupcakes for all the girls who were mean to her. The secret ingredient: Sperm. But whose? --remained a valid question. Until I looked it up and read that there wasn't actually any bodily fluids included in the recipe. Which brought me to Octavia Spencer's character in The Help: "Eat my shit." Vengeance baking! What a wonderful new world. 

However, this cake was made with nothing but joy and lightheartedness. With the marshmallow-like cake on a platter, covered in three pieces of aluminum foil, we traveled from Pilsen to Palmer Square to watch Compulsion, another 1959 movie, this one about Leopold and Loeb. The cake turned out surprisingly well, unlike the teens' "perfect" crime: the frosting went on smooth, unlike Orson Welles' makeup; it looked as angelic as the young Dean Stockwell; and the cake was as soft and airy as the cotton-headed character Ruth Evans. All in all, the cake was a success. The right tools really make a difference.

those little silver ball decorations would have been a good addition

Now I just need to get some measuring spoons. 

Before I end, I want to say that though this cake was so much more fun to make, and turned out clearly better, the two pies I made under such stress last week turned out quite well. The first was gone within an hour at work, with very positive reviews, and the second was enjoyed by my roommates. When I told my mom the pies nearly caused a collapse, she said, unsurprised: "Baking after a move will do that." 

Country Boys Baking

Mitch and Twinkle Toes, the Little Prince

Yesterday, on the gorgeous, 75 degree day, my southern belle cohort, Mitch, came over to bake a cake. He arrived bearing pot roast and mac-n-cheese. One thing I absolutely love about hanging out with Mitch is that there is always a home-cooked meal in enormous proportions. We eat, usually at least two large helpings, and watch TV mysteries solved by tough, sometimes charming lady detectives. We talk okra, cast iron, and Miss Marple.

Measuring out ingredients while quoting Steel Magnolias, we make a mess at the table. The recipe I picked for today, a self-frosting German chocolate cake, is easy, and we laugh at my lack of supplies. This week, I purposefully picked a recipe that didn't call for high-speed beating.

Our cats enter conversation, about as often as Noreen tries to get on the table. She's as imperturbable as Miss Marple, as difficult to say "no" to.

Mitch wants to write, but struggles to put his words on paper. He has such stories about growing up poor in the south. "Poor or dirt-poor?" I asked him. "Depends on what part of the house you were in," he replied. His memories are peppered with the most wonderful details, for example, how his mother held her newest pet (a baby possum) in a red Solo cup.

Belle Brezing as a child

 Mitch recently returned from my hometown, Lexington, Kentucky, which he visited after the Derby. He brought me back two elegant cake platters and the name for my next cat: Madam Belle Brezing. Belle was a colorful local character from Lexington, a shrewd business woman, generous community member, and she ran the best brothel in the state, out of what is now better known as the Mary Todd Lincoln house. My mom, sister, and I visited the historical landmark on a homeschooling trip, and the tour guide told us it was once a brothel. "What's a brothel?" my younger sister asked. Without a pause, I answered: "A whorehouse." Belle Brezing made a success out of a tough situation, and didn't wait for anyone to tell her what to do.

beetles

We poured melted butter and brown sugar into the cake tin, and then Mitch sprinkled the pecan halves, shells like beetles, into the sweet brown mixture. Then, taking coconut flakes between his fingers, he sprinkled them atop the pecans. We halved the amount of coconut, since I'm not usually a fan. I'm glad we did. It's a great taste, but can be a bit much. With a fork, we beat together the rest of the ingredients, first the dry, and then the wet. I poured it into the pan and baked at just 350 degrees for forty-five minutes. When it came out, we cooled for five minutes, then turned it onto the cake platter. It's top is candied and delicious, the interior soft and moist. 

I fussed about the y-shaped crevice down the center, but Mitch waved it off. "Baking for your own consumption is not about perfection, it's about fun. Celebrate the successes! We made the damn thing with just a fork and a spatula!"

California Lemon Pie

Put on Mrs. Miller, because recently you and Elise have become obsessed with her. A housewife with no talent, singing old pop songs in a ridiculous opera voice...it's a perfect background to our pie-baking.

1 9-inch unbaked pie crust, which you have to make from scratch since you forgot to take the pie dough out of the freezer yesterday. Making your own goes surprisingly well. 
3 eggs, separated. "Separated how?" Asks Elise, eyes wide with faux-innocence. "Like, around the house? Like an Easter egg hunt?"
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened in your hand
1 cup milk, also using the measuring cup with sugar residue
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel. Since there's no grater, scrape away as much as you can with a paring knife

EARLY IN DAY--LIKE AROUND TWO:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Prick piecrust with fork; bake only 8 minutes; set on top of refrigerator.
2. Turn oven control to 350 degrees. In small bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. However, since for some reason the mixer was left out but the beaters were packed, you will have to do the best you can whisking with a fork by hand. When your hand starts hurting unbearably, pass off to partner. Whisking as hard and fast as you can, sprinkle in a 1/2 cup sugar until dissolved, or close enough.
3. In large bowl, with a small fork, beat 1/2 cup sugar with butter and egg yolks until well mixed; at "low-speed," beat in milk, lemon juice, flour, and lemon peel.
4. With wire whisk (but you don't have one of these either, so use rubber spatula), "gently fold" whites into yolk mixture. Stop Elise from beating the mixture together, because the recipe did say gently, after all. Pour into pie crust. Look at it for a moment, since it doesn't reach up to the top of the crust, it looks a little sad.
5. Bake 35-40 minutes, taking the time to call Amber for her birthday and write this blog. Then stick a knife into the pie and when it comes out clean, it's done. Sprinkle/dump some powdered sugar and do a photoshoot. Refrigerate and start watching Band of Outsiders, or have Elise cut your hair. Makes 8 servings.

Chocolate Cake with Coffee-Cream-Cheese Icing

Aaron the Baker, who helped me make those beautiful pies a few weeks ago, moved into my neighborhood on Monday. After seeing my pathetic chocolate cake attempt, he wanted to help me make a cake that actually looked like a cake. So this week I picked another chocolate cake out of Good Housekeeping, along with a coffee-cream-cheese icing (using a package of cream cheese from what I overbought for my cheesecake).

He was waiting for the gas people to come to his apartment, so I measured out the ingredients, packed them up, and swung by the grocery store to buy cake tins and some additional ingredients, then walked to his place. It was a drizzling, grey morning, but not cold. This was my first time baking at someone else's house for my project.

On my walk I thought about the book I'm reading that Aaron lent me. It's called Flesh and Blood and is by the wonderful Michael Cunningham. I first read him my junior year of college, when we read The Hours in my postmodernism course. The professor, who I had a raging crush on, said that The Hours was the book he wished he'd written himself. I know what he means. Cunningham's writing is gorgeous. He is like a boiled-down Woolf, specifically a Mrs. Dalloway-Woolf. He writes in such detail about the "little" moments in life that make up the entirety, with a sharp focus on the home and family. Flesh and Blood is about three generations of a family from 1935 to 1995. There are only rare moments described from the characters' work days--for the most part it is all set in homes, and revolves around the futility of the American Dream. There are moments that echo The Hours. One of those is the description of a housewife making a birthday cake. It's a beautiful picture, and like Woolf, he elevates a household task into art. There is a huge amount of pressure the wife feels to make a perfect cake, and a conflict between creating this piece of artwork, made up of dedication and love, for your family, but at the same time feeling suffocated by your family and the need to make a cake.

Aaron's place was covered in boxes. Nothing was unpacked, and the kitchen counters were invisible. We shifted things around and I unpacked my bags and my tiny little "recipe:"

The recipe was simple. You mixed the cake ingredients together on high for five minutes, then pour them into the greased pans and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Then you mix the frosting together and coat the cake when cool. Aaron showed me how to make it in a way that was a little more involved, and would make a better result. In his KitchenAid mixer we whipped up the sugar, eggs, and vanilla bean until frothy, and then added a third of the wet ingredients, then a third of the dry, and continued until everything was well-mixed.

We then poured it into the cake tins and put in the oven. Then we made the frosting, mixing the dry ingredients first, and then adding the evaporated milk. He told me this was more of an "icing," which is thinner than a "frosting." It tasted delicious. Aaron laughs at how old-fashioned my recipes are. I reminded him I'm using a cookbook from the seventies.

He played one of his favorite musicals for me and told me sad stories.

While the beautiful cakes cooled, we moved some of the boxes and furniture around in his front room so we could put the rug down. Then we arranged the TV where he and his roommate wanted it ("So you could see it wherever you are in the room"). They have so much furniture! I thought about when Elise and I move. We have our beds, a couple of nightstands, and a hand chair. Plus two cats and loads of books.

We iced the cakes in a rustic way, and sprinkled some coffee struesel in between the layers and on top. The cake looks great, and I can't wait to eat it. I didn't expect this blog to become such an occasion for socializing, but I love that about it. Here it is:

This is how you make a pie

First Step: Preheat the oven.

On the day I scheduled to make a pear pie with my friend Casey, Chris decided to pack up the kitchen. Now, Elise and I hadn't lived on our own before the three of us moved in together, and since it didn't make sense for us to get three sets of everything, all the kitchen equipment came from Chris. So when he packed, we were left with no skillet, no spatulas, no saucepans, etc. Gloria Wood's "Hey, Bellboy!" rose to a frenzied crescendo of shriek-like singing while I scrubbed the stove top and he packed away our only mixing bowl. Gloria's needling insinuations were perfectly irritating as he rendered the next five weeks just a bit more difficult for all of us.

Second Step: Mix together the filling.

Casey came over with his own Mary Poppins bag of necessities. He brought all the ingredients and a few of the supplies. Best of all, he brought pears from his family's virile tree in Indiana. His father cans the pears himself, tons of them, Casey says, and they still have bags of fresh pears to give away. We had two beautiful mason jars to work with. Casey has his Polish grandmother's recipe by heart, and has been making this pie since he was a child. There aren't many ingredients, it's a simple, delicious family recipe. He did it almost by feel, which made me apprehensive since all I've known about baking so far is that you have to be very precise. Draining the pears with our hands and the lids of the jars, since the colanders were packed, we then improvised with different soup bowls in order to mix together the pears with sugar and cinnamon.

Third Step: Make the crust.

The dough had sifted flour, milk, and lots of oil. My favorite part of making the pie was shaking the oil and milk together using the rinsed-out pear jar. While I crumbled the dough together between my fingers, Casey urged me to add more oil, which I did hesitatingly, cautiously, making him laugh as he urged me on. I formed the oily dough into a firm ball with no crumbs. We broke it in two and he smashed half of it down onto a sheet of waxed paper, and placed another sheet over the dough patty before I rolled it out. Casey is playful when giving directions, and I can imagine him at the head of his classroom, with the little kids listening to him. They must like him: He talks to you like he believes you can do wonderful things.

Our pie dishes are identical, and they are both slightly larger than what any recipe calls for. The dough, though rolled out paper-thin, didn't quite make it to the top, so we patched it together as best we could. It was cracked and patchy, but we figured it would do.

Fourth Step: Pour the mixture into the crust and cover with a top crust. Bake for forty-five minutes, or until golden-brown.

As we had rolled out the dough, the sugar had started breaking down the pears, and there was more liquid in the mixture. We poured that into the crust and covered it with a top crust. At that point, Kyle rang the bell. I love being around Kyle (who steals the show in a great production you must see!). He's always making me laugh, befriending servers, and telling stories. Kyle cracked jokes while Casey and I padded down the top crust with milk and sprinkled it with sugar. We put the pie in the oven, set the timer for forty-five minutes, and we went out to get Cokes and ice cream.

When we came back, the pie still had twenty minutes to go. We made rum-and-coke floats and had just a deliriously good time waiting for the pie to finish. I told them about the kitchen stuff being packed away, and Kyle looked me up and down with pursed lips and said, "Gurl, it seems you've been busy relying on other people when you should've been believing in yourself."

Fifth Step: When it comes out, sprinkle with sugar and serve with vanilla ice cream!

This is Kyle all over

They showed me the proper way to cut a pie--not into quarters right away, because you don't want to expose the sides to air. The pie was delicious, but Casey and Kyle agreed it should have more sugar. I had misunderstood Casey when measuring out the sugar, and added too little, but I liked it just the way it was. The crust was flaky and the pears were perfect. We ate quickly and jumped into a cab to go to a cabaret show in Wicker Park. The show was in the back of Davenport's (which is the perfect name for a bulldog!) and the audience was made up of intoxicated performers. The singer had a beautiful tenor voice and a very straight collection of songs--Maroon 5, JT, and Allen Stone. It was called "Mixtapes for an Ex-Girlfriend," and whenever he almost made you feel something, he made a joke about it. Like how my grandmother hugged us--she embraced you with one arm, but then put an iron hand against your chest to prevent you from getting too close.

As you can imagine, some of the songs were angry, some were bewildered and broken-hearted, but then he ended with Jason Mraz's "You and I Both." I hadn't heard that song since sophomore year of college. The words came back to me as he sang, but fresh and new. It's a song about splitting up, but it's full of tenderness and forgiveness, and was a lovely ending to the show. It's a pop song, so it's made to manipulate emotion, I know that, but maybe because of all the drinks I'd had...I closed my eyes and they burned and there was Vanessa. There was Andie, and also Elaine. And then Wil and Eric and Dan and Paget and...this procession of people who I loved so much for such a brief time, before we plummeted away from each other into our different narratives.

So this is how you make a pie: You take something you have and something he has, you make it into something new and better, and then you share it with whoever is around you. If you can afford it, you have a couple drinks and a scoop of ice cream. Your friends will go their way eventually, but you'll have that evening to talk about when you run into them again, whenever that may be.

With a little help from a friend

Today I found myself the lucky receiver of industry tips when my friend the pastry chef came by to help me make an apple pie. He took pity on me when he saw the picture of last week's work. "Kinda looks like a pile of potatoes," someone said.

If I wrote this blog for unequivocal support I would be a fool. 

When he arrived, he had bags of equipment. "I didn't know how much you would have," he said. "Well, I have pots and pans," I thought, but realized it was probably better that he brought extra supplies, considering my track record. I thought I was prepared, putting out a mixing bowl and a grater we didn't even use. A grater?! Like Mary Poppins and her carpetbag, he pulled out knives, a rolling pin with no handles, and a slick mat from France that is pretty much magic. We started by rolling out dough that he had prepared the night before. 

this mat refuses to let anything stick to it, also, it wears a beret

I learned that dough should be cold and rested, and is much more difficult to work with if not. His dough was a thick disk, and totally unlike mine. 

He rolled one out like the professional he is, then told me to do one. I could barely get it to move, it was so heavy and cold. "Don't be afraid of the dough," he said. When I started getting the hang of it, my dough was uneven and breaking into pieces, like my mind. I think it was then he truly realized what he was up against (this was about fifteen minutes into the two and a half hours we spent baking). "So just, um, try and even it out here...ok, just give me that, no, let go, give that to me..."

"Well, what should I be doing?"

"Make the cherry pie filling," he said. 

"Ok, and you flute the edges," I said, as if it were an even trade-off. And flute the edges he did, easily, and looking disconcertingly like that picture I posted last week. I took a video of him pinching the crust, but the best part of it was that you can hear "MacArthur Park" in the background. 

We had two crusts, so we made two pies. The "good one" was the apple, which was the more difficult of the two. The cherry pie filling (which I was in charge of!) involved opening a can of cherry filling and mixing in cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. I made it a lot more difficult than it needed to be a few months ago. Like, I strained the cherry pie filling and then put it back together. WHY?!

While the pie crusts re-cooled in the fridge, we peeled apples and spooned out the cores, keeping them in a big bowl of lemon water. Some of them he cubed, others I sliced into tiny slivers with a knife so sharp you wouldn't feel it cut off your finger. 

We boiled the cubed apples into a delicious-smelling compote with ginger and cinnamon, and he made a gorgeous lattice for the cherry pie. He wove them on a cutting board and we put it in the freezer. 

"The trick is to keep the dough cold. You can't work with warm dough," he said. 

We filled the pie crusts with their respective mixtures, and arranged the apple slices in a layered circle. We transferred the lattice over the pie and he deftly cut away the extra dough and folded over the crust. My goodness, they were beautiful.

And then we put them in the oven and things got hot and fun. By which I mean, I got distracted and went into my bedroom where this picture awaited me:

Gah!

And when I walked back into the kitchen I noticed it was smokey. 

"It's smokey," I observed, to which he said it must be something that had previously dripped in the oven. I put a baking sheet under the pies and then it got RUHL smokey and the fire alarm went off. Turns out I had smoldered the cherry filling that had oozed out when I put the baking sheet over it. I went around the house, throwing open windows and doors and wondering how fast smoke inhalation could kill an elderly cat with cancer. As he cleaned out the hot oven with mitts and two towels, the second fire alarm went off. I couldn't help laughing--of course I couldn't have a peaceful, easy baking experience, even with a professional helping me. 

We aired out the apartment and the rest of the baking went without incident. The pies look beautiful, and the apple pie is amazing! So good. 

I am very lucky! 

Open-Face Apple Pie

I had enough apples left over from last week to make another iteration of an apple pie. The next recipe in Good Housekeeping is an open-face apple pie, so that is what I made today. Also, the friend I invited over for pie has a preference for fruit pies. Or at least, it seems like he would. I'm not actually sure.

I put on the Andrews Sisters (don't sit under the apple tree!) and got to work. An open-face pie is very simple. First, you make the crust, then you fill with your apple mixture, and bake!

Rolling out the pie crust is something I still can't do in one go--the butter always sticks to the table and it falls apart the first time I try to roll it out. This recipe calls for a "fluted edge," which I think involves pinching the crust so it looks wavy. See my example below:

jk, this is from the internet

Oh my! Look at that perfect, even-looking crust (no holes! no chunks of butter!) look at those clean white hands, no flour around the nails. And check out that fluting. Damn, gurl. You can just imagine that person's kitchen, full of sunlight and shiny new appliances, like something out of a Crate and Barrel ad.

By the time I finally got the crust into the pie pan without falling into three pieces, I realized the crust didn't reach all the way up, so I patched it up with extra dough. Now, when your crust is made that way, how do you imagine fluting goes? I tried for a quarter of the way around, and my attempts just ripped off the crust. I do not have the patience for fluting. I dumped the apple mixture into the crust and called it a day.

Eventually I would like to make a crust that isn't so charmingly "rustic." I would like to be able to make a passable decorative edge, frost a cake smoothly with minimal crumbs, and make a pie crust without looking at the recipe (I'm almost there on that one!). I'd also like to have a pie recipe I can do by heart, and elaborate on.

I'm getting to know a man from the Gay Men's Chorus (buy tickets for our upcoming show here!!) who is a pastry chef. He was my go-to when I was making this pie. "Do I really need to drizzle corn syrup like Good Housekeeping says?" I text. "Ew, no," was his response. "All you need is apples, spices, maybe vanilla, and..." but I deleted the text to make room for incoming texts so I don't remember what the last part was. So, no corn syrup, but I added vanilla (which wasn't in my recipe!). How naughty.

My pie! (Also, cat) It looks like a pile of apples in a crust.

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.

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