A Finger in Every Pie

Nuttiness as Promised, Part I: Torte Orzechowy

The tease is at least partially over, and here, as promised, is the recipe for a cake so delectable, I don't know why we're not all making it all the time.  It's a very perfect, slightly intense holiday dessert, meant to be enjoyed in thin slices.  It's excellent served either at a reasonable interval after a festive meal, or perhaps during an afternoon visit with friends, over tea.  It would also be great with champagne, or perhaps mulled wine.  I believe that even those who don't particularly like walnuts would enjoy this torte.  Somehow the bitterness that some people find problematic in walnuts is transformed into pure sweet spongy nuttiness with this recipe.  Balanced with the bittersweet lushness of plenty of dark chocolate in the filling and icing, it's simply a delight.  It is not a difficult cake to make, really, especially if you have a food processor and a stand mixer (and I used to make it even in the bad old days when I only had a hand-held mixer).  It is, however, a finicky recipe, and a bit time-consuming.  It warrants some degree of care, so it's best to make it when you can move through the steps in a relaxed way.  Rushing through something like this is, in my experience, a recipe for nothing more than disaster. 

I've meant to blog about this recipe for years, but I don't make it very often, since it is rich, dense, serves a large number of people and is really a special occasion dessert.  Finally the perfect moment to make it arose -- and therein lies a tale. 

More than two decades ago, my mother's closest friend gave her a cookbook which had just been published, called Nela's Cookbook (upon recent examination, I discovered that this delightfully readable book was edited by none other than, of course, Judith Jones).  It was a tome of the recipes and anecdotes of Nela Rubinstein, wife of the famed pianist Artur Rubinstein.  Nela was a celebrated hostess and cook among "their set", who included fellow musicians, various politicians, intelligentsia and nobility as well.   Nela (who died in 2002, just three days before my own mom) was Polish, and many of her recipes reflect this heritage. 

Until I read this cookbook, I was not aware of the delicacy and refinement of many aspects of this cuisine, which also contains a balance of robust, somewhat heavier dishes.  In this way, as well as in other particulars of specific recipes, it's extremely similar to the Russian cuisine beloved of my mother, and, by extension, our whole family -- a sort of cooking that encompasses both highly refined, Francophilic food and hearty, peasant-based soups, stews and dark breads.   

My mother's favorite recipe out of this book was the Torte Orzechowy, a rich, chocolate-iced walnut torte, which, while she was up to it, she made every year for my birthday.  She was thrilled to have come upon this cake that I adored and craved, especially since I had long become the family baker.  My mother had felt for a while that it wasn't quite right that I should have to make do with a bakery cake when I was the one that always came up with extravagant confections for everyone else's birthday.  She made this for me for many years, as long as she still could.  My father would help her beat the egg whites, since they were still using an old rotary eggbeater and it took the kind of muscular strength that wasn't easy for elder people.

About a year and a half ago, the lovely Bakerina stayed up all night at my house in her quest to complete Blogathon 2006.  Before G and I crashed that night, I was doing my best to keep her entertained and give her blogging material.  I gave her homemade peach sorbet and showed her Nela's Cookbook, and, like any right-minded baker, she was immediately taken with the recipe for Torte Orzechowy.  "I want to blog about this," she said.  "Ummmm," I said.  "What is it?" she said immediately.  "Ummm, well, I've always sort of meant to blog about this cake.  I kind of have a history with it, you see.  My mom used to make it for my birthday."  "Ah, then I'll wait for you to blog about it.  Besides," said she, "There's another cake in here that I'm equally taken with, and I'll blog about that."  She was talking about the Sand Torte, which she of course not only blogged about, but also eventually made very successfully (this being a cake that I had a spectacularly gummy, unrisen, dead-weight failure with about a decade ago, and have never attempted since).  And of course I was being utterly small-minded and silly about this, since really, the world-wide interweb's most enjoyed and utilized recipes are those that many of us have blogged. 

In any case, when Bunni approached me about a surprise birthday party for Bakerina, I offered to bake the birthday cake -- and knew that there was only one cake that would do.  It rose and baked beautifully, and was eaten with delight by all the guests -- at least those who didn't have nut allergies (sorry, didn't know).  My one criticism of this particular effort on my part is that I was trying to gild pure gold, and used Nela's variation of raspberry jam as a filling, which she suggests using instead of chocolate filling for one layer.  I put it in along with the chocolate filling, going for overkill.  It was only after I tasted it that I remembered that I hadn't really loved this variation as much when my mother used it one year, preferring just the flavors of nuts, rum and chocolate, although I often love jam in things like this.  Most importantly, Bakerina was duly pleased and surprised by her soirée; our hostess Bunni made a copious, multi-coursed, elegant and delicious meal, and plenty of wine and conversation were enjoyed by all.

Since my mother's death, I've only made this cake a few other times -- notably for Passover seders where I was a guest, and wanted to bring something wonderful.  It makes an excellent Passover cake with the substitution of matzoh meal for the bread crumbs.  But Passover is far away. 

My current holiday hunch is that, since it is a rather spongy, springy, egg-based cake it would behave like a roulade batter and make an excellent Bûche de Noël.  I think the nut-rich batter could be baked in a parchment-lined, buttered-and-floured 10"x15" jelly-roll pan, and rolled while still warm to keep the cake layer malleable, then unrolled, filled, re-rolled and iced -- just as you would any other jelly-roll sort of cake.  The baking time would need to be monitored carefully.  I'd probably start with about fifteen minutes baking time, since the sheet layer may be rather thin, and begin testing for doneness from there. The filling and icing that go with it would work for this purpose too -- the texture of the icing would be perfect for striating into trompe l'oeil bark.  I'm aching to try this, and may just do it for a holiday party.    

Torte Orzechowy
(Walnut Cake)

I'm typing this pretty much as it is written in Nela's Cookbook, but interjecting a few modifications into the text -- some of these were made because I, in my haphazard fashion, thought I had everything I needed, but had to make a couple of quick substitutions.  The modifications in methodology (adding the sugar in three stages, mainly) I made because I think they give a better result, with more volume to the finished batter and thus more lightness to the cake.  I've put my own mods in italics, so you can distinguish them easily from the original recipe. 

Nela says:  "This rich, dark, nut layer cake is perfect for large parties, since one serves it in small pieces.  As a rule I cut a circular core, about 1 1/2 inches from the edge, then cut the circular rim in truncated wedges and the core in pointed wedges.  For this cake, I use the processor to grind the nuts and the big mixer (fitted with the whip) for the eggs.  This is one of my mother's best recipes, one we have always made for special events such as birthdays and Christmas." 

1 pound (450 grams) walnut meats, ground to powder
(makes 6 cups/1 1/2 liters, not pressed down)
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) sugar (divided into three 1/2 cups)
11 eggs, separated (I used 10 jumbo eggs, since that's what I had in the house)
1/2 cup heavy cream (I forgot to put this in [!] and it still turned out lovely, btw)
Grated zest of 1 large orange (I used the grated zest of a clementine, and 1/2 tsp. Boyajian orange oil)
1/2 cup (1 deciliter) unseasoned bread crumbs
1/3 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. dark rum
Shelled walnuts for decoration (optional)

Butter and flour 3 9-inch layer pans or one 10-inch springform (I also used parchment circles, buttered and floured, on the bottom of each tin.  It's worth noting that this cake bakes very differently in different pans; I didn't have 3 9" layer pans of the same sort, so I used two heavy, dark pans, and one old light-colored, lightweight aluminum pan -- in which the cake took MUCH longer to bake, fell a bit, and was not as stable). 

If you grind the walnuts in the processor, grind them with 1/2 cup of the sugar to prevent oiliness (I zested the orange/clementine in long strips, ground it in the processor with the 1/2 cup sugar and proceeded to use this orange sugar to grind the walnuts). 

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until they become very pale and form the ribbon (I used only 1/2 cup of sugar here, and reserved the last half cup for beating with the egg whites, in order to stabilize them).  Add the cream (I forgot, but no matter).  Mix together the grated nuts, orange zest, bread crumbs, and salt.  Beat the egg whites till stiff (I beat them about halfway, then added the salt here, rather than with the bread crumbs, and began to sprinkle in the last 1/2 cup of sugar while I was still beating them, until they became thick and stiff and shiny, but still pliable, like Italian meringue) and fold them into the yolk mixture (I do this very slowly and carefully, trying to ensure that I don't break down the aeration in either mixture any more than necessary).  Sprinkle the nut mixture over the batter, gently folding it in until evenly combined.  Distribute the batter equally among the 3 layer pans or spoon it into the springform. 

Bake the layers for 25 - 30 minutes.  Halfway through baking, exchange the layers from the upper to the lower racks, from the front to the back of your oven, so that all will bake evenly.  The springform version takes 50 minutes to bake. 

Let the cake cool for 5 minutes in the layer pans, then unmold the layers onto racks.  In the springform pan, cool the cake for 20 minutes, then unlatch and remove the wall of the pan.

To cut a large cake into layers, cut it vertically in half, then cut each half into 3 equal layers.  When you reassemble the circles, the frosting will hide the cuts (I've never actually tried this). 

Before filling and frosting the cake, sprinkle the layers with rum.  They should then sit for 30 minutes (to absorb the rum) before you assemble the cake.   Spread the lower layer of cake with half the Chocolate-butter Filling (following recipe), put another layer of cake on that, and spread with the rest of the filling.  Top with the third layer, then frost the assembled cake with the Chocolate Mazurka Icing on page 337 (recipe follows).  Decorate, if you like, with halved walnuts. 

Chocolate-Butter Filling

4 ounces (115 grams) semisweet chocolate (I think this is a good place for at least a 70% chocolate, since it is cut equally with butter)
1 stick (4 ounces or 115 grams) unsalted butter, cool room temperature
2 Tbsp. dark rum
Pinch of salt

Melt the chocolate over very low heat, and allow to cool.  Cream the butter and combine it with the chocolate (which should be cool enough to touch comfortably) and the rum and the salt.

Chocolate Icing

Nela says to use a chocolate like Tobler "Tradition".  It's worth noting that this recipe was written before we had so many different chocolates with differing cocoa contents available to the home cook.  For this glaze, I use either a 60% or a 70% chocolate, depending on my audience and their tolerance for bitter chocolate, or I use a combination, which also works well. 

This makes a shining glaze 1/4 inch thick (on cooling, the glaze is quite a bit duller, especially after it's been spread -- but still delicious).

6 ounces (180 grams) best bittersweet chocolate
1/4 cup (1/2 deciliter) water
1/3 cup (3/4 deciliter) heavy cream
2 tsp. unsalted butter

Melt the chocolate with the water over low heat.  Add the cream and butter and raise the heat to medium.  Let a little moisture evaporate, but remember that this misture will thicken as it cools.  Take it off the heat when it has the consistency of thick honey.  (At this point the recipe directions diverge a bit from our intended use, since it is published first in the cookbook as an icing intended to be poured warm over a sheet of baked pâte sablée, for the Polish confection known as "mazurka".  Cool slightly, and pour/spread over the assembled Torte Orzechowy.)

Almost Back

The good news would be that I've actually been back in the kitchen, doing at least a minimal amount of cooking and baking.  The not-so-good news is that very little in the way of food (or of anything else, for that matter) seems to hold my interest.  I get tired of whatever it is I've cooked after a few bites, with a sort of post-illness ennui. 

The cakes above, for example, which are a variant of this cake.  They're made with the same delicious beurre noisette, light muscovado sugar, and plums, blueberries and raspberries, all from the farmers' market, in addition to the usual nectarines.  I also gave them the added fillip of a drizzle of salted butter caramel, which caused the fruit to caramelize further on top, and provided that crisp sugary crust surrounding the fruit.  And I enjoyed making them, but became so disinterested in them shortly thereafter that I gave them both away.  We took one to my father's home, for a dinner we made to share with him and his caregiver the other night.  I ate a little slice at dessert time.  My dad, however, was very taken with it, which pleased me no end.  We left the entire cake, hoping he might eat more over the course of the week; it's not always an easy task to tempt his appetite.  And we knew we had another one at home, since I always make two of these. 

The second one we took to our friends, where we were having an impromptu pizza supper last night.  With no regret, again after one small slice, I begged to be allowed to leave them the remains, assuring them that it's a great breakfast cake with a hot cup of good coffee.  They agreed happily.  And G also, although he liked the cake perfectly well, showed no signs of wishing for a slice or two to take home.  Neither of us can quite bring ourselves to care much about food yet.

Tonight, however, I'll make darling G his favorite collard greens and some fresh corn-on-the-cob, along with a few other surprises, to see if that doesn't pique his appetite a bit.  And perhaps mine, as well. 

A Little Something

If you're a person who's accustomed to cooking for family and friends and colleagues, there's something about weddings and their associated parties that can make you feel a little bit helpless.  Especially if you're the bride.  In some ways, it's out of your hands.  You may participate in menu decisions, but it's not quite the same.  People nod sagely over your head -- after all, you're in love, you're bedazzled with everything that's going on, you're in no shape to make any choices about any of this.  Or so people treat you, much of the time.

Recently we went for a site visit to the beautiful house in Connecticut where, next Saturday, we will have what we're calling our "family party", a belated reception for about 60 members of our families (this will be complete with a slightly bastardized ceremony, since we are already safely married -- for two whole weeks as of today, mind you).  The caterers were there, as was my close friend, who's doing flowers, decoration and basically managing the whole event.  G and I arrived for the site visit somewhat late, and the caterer and my friend were out on the patio talking.  I came out to join them.  "So what do you think?" I asked.   "We've got it all figured out," they told me.  "You don't need to worry about a thing."  "Right, I'm just the bride, after all," I said huffily.  "Exactly,"  they said.   

Several weeks ago, my bridal shower took place.  It was a gorgeous, lovingly catered tea, with scones and sandwiches, fruit and cheese and vegetable platters, and gorgeous mini-pastries.  I didn't lift a finger.  In fact, I was late.   I breezed in in my flouncy purple silk dress and was the center of attention for a couple of hours.  I loved every second of it -- but it did feel more than a little strange, not to be cooking or helping or serving or doing much of anything except having others dote on me.   I'm not used to it, frankly.

Our private wedding ceremony in my father's apartment, with just 10 people present, and our cocktail party the next day, with a cast of about 50, would have to be just a tiny bit different, I thought.  I needed to mark the territory in some small way.  Our wedding supper had been taken out of my hands by my in-laws, as mentioned in my cupcake post.  And our cocktail party, hosted the next day by my brother and sister-in-law, would also be hands-off for me -- almost. 

"Let's bring champagne up to Dad's house for right after the ceremony," I said to G.  "I mean, it's not going to take that long, and then we can have some champagne and some little nibbles before we go to the restaurant."  I had a plan up my sleeve.  There was something I could still provide for my wedding day -- some little bites to go with the champagne, not enough to spoil dinner, but just "a little something."  Salted Marcona almonds,  I thought, they're perfect with champagne -- not knowing that by some strange twist of fate, I would need to go to three stores to find them -- and wouldn't find them until a few hours before the ceremony.  But by then my heart was set on Marconas, and no other almonds would do.  Thank you, Zabar's.  Moist French dried apricots, stuffed with a bit of goat cheese and wrapped in prosciutto would be my next treat; a sweet-salty counterpoint is nice with the bubbly, too.  And then my secret weapon -- the groom's favorite -- little savory cheese cookies, known in my childhood as "cheese dollars."

So amidst all the insanity of getting ready to actually tie the knot, I managed to whip up some hors d'oeuvres.  Cutting apricots in half and pushing a smudge of goat cheese in them and then wrapping them with a ribbon of prosciutto is easy, although more time-consuming than you might think.  But the dough for the cheese dollars was a breeze, and baking them off was a snap.  I even made extra some extra rolls of dough and stashed them in the fridge. 

Once we'd said our "I dos" -- and what I like even more, our "with this ring, I thee wed", it was time to relax with champagne, before going here for dinner.  The cheese dollars were a big hit, not only with the groom, but with the one who gave me away -- my darling dad.  He'd been pleased as punch for days, because his lily amaryllis, which had been dormant for at least a decade, burst into huge, bright red trumpets a couple of days before the ceremony.  He was perseverating on those flowers -- until he tasted the cheese dollars, which then became his idée fixe for the rest of the evening.  I promised I'd make him more -- and that he wouldn't need to wait for a wedding to have them again. 

After family toasts and our beautiful wedding supper, we were off to a fairy tale mini-honeymoon evening at The London NYC Hotel (the gift of the same friend who threw my shower, is doing my flowers for next week, and gave me her mother's antique gold bracelet as yet another gift.  Everyone should have such a friend).  We lolled around our suite which had been kitted out with champagne and strawberries, and the next morning a full English breakfast was sent up by Gordon Ramsay's kitchen.   We had ourselves a lazy day, lounging in bed for hours, walking in Central Park, and finally realized that we should check out and go home to dress for our cocktail party. 

"I've got just enough time,"  I thought.  I was flitting about the wreck of our apartment, wearing nothing but one of G's shirts and a pair of gigantic thick wool ski socks under my pointy gold-lamé sling-backs, hoping to stretch them out a little more.   Another batch of cheese dollars was baking for me to bring to the cocktail party, and I stopped for a minute to sew a broken strap on the bag my cousin had loaned me (my "something borrowed").  G came upon me in this state.  "Wow.  You're baking my favorite cheese dollars AND sewing, wearing my shirt and high heels.  You look adorable.  I love you." he said, kissing me.  "I love you, too," I said.  "So for the moment, I'll permit you your little fantasy that this sort of domestic interlude is what marriage is going to be all about.  After all, we're still in the first 24 hours."

Savory Cheese Dollars

• < 30 mins Snacks
• Cheese Snacks
• Picnic Snacks
• High Calcium Snacks

You can use any cheese in this -- I just love the combination of aged cheddar and hard Italian grating cheeses.

4 oz. unsalted butter
10 oz. good aged cheddar cheese (we use Cabot), diced or grated
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp.  salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
pinch cayenne pepper

Place the butter and cheeses in a food processor fitted with the middle blade, and process until combined.  Whisk together the flour, salt, peppers and nutmeg.  Add to the food processor, and blend just until a dough is formed.  Scrape the dough onto plastic wrap or waxed paper, and refrigerate for about an hour, until it firms up a little.  Then form it into three cylinders, each an inch in diameter.  Wrap each roll tightly in plastic or waxed paper, and chill until very firm (at this point the dough can also be frozen for up to 3 months -- probably longer.  Other recipes say that this sort of  dough lasts for 3 days in the fridge, 3 months in the freezer.  I'll say that I've kept it in the fridge for considerably longer than three days, and then baked it off with brilliant results.  But I like to live dangerously). 

When you're ready to bake, preheat your oven to 425 F.  Slice the dough cylinders in 1/4 inch slices, and arrange them nicely on parchment-lined baking sheets, about 1/2 inch apart (I don't always obey that rule, either.  Good thing the judge didn't have that "obey" word in the wedding vows.  For either of us).  If the dough is frozen, you'll need to take it out for a few minutes and let it defrost just slightly before you slice it. 

Bake for 10 -15 minutes, depending on your oven.  Rotate the baking sheets top to bottom and back to front after the first five minutes or so, and check on the browning.  When perfectly golden brown, let them cool for a minute on baking sheets and then remove with a little angled spatula to cool on wire racks. 

These are delicious warm, but are excellent as well at room temperature.  They're also good several days after baking, when the cheese flavor develops even more. 

 

The Taste of the Past

It’s probably pretty safe to say that you can never really know what will come of utilizing our friend the Internets to air your rambling thoughts, express your heated opinions, share your latest million-dollar idea, or perhaps just talk about something you ate long ago, something you know you’ll never taste again in this lifetime. 

Quite some time ago, Clotilde tagged me for  a meme on childhood food memories.  Among several different food memories,  I wrote about being haunted by the memory of a  flavor -- that of some little cakes called Lisettes (scroll down to number 4),  made by a family friend when I was a child.  I was quite sure that the recipe for these had been lost forever, and that they were not baked at all by anyone, anywhere on the planet.

I was wrong. 

A few weeks ago, on my birthday in fact, I received the following email directed to the addy that I use for this site:      

My daughter, who now lives in Beijing, just baked a sheet of Lisettes.   Just for fun, she Googled "Lisettes" and came up with your August 2005 web blog entry.  She, my brother and I were all astounded to see it:
http://fingerineverypie.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/baby_bites_chil.html

We are all very curious as to WHO you are.   Presumably some long lost family friend.

As for the recipe, Liesel sadly died very suddenly in 1980 without passing on the recipe to either of her sons.  But several years later, I managed to piece together the recipe by writing to a number of people who had baked the cookies with her over the years.   And I have been baking them ever since -- albeit only once a year.   And although we don't share the recipe with others (!), both my brother (and his wife) and my wife and I now all have the recipe.  As does our daughter.   So, your predictions on daughters-in-law didn't pan out.

Please write and let us know who you are.   One of us will then bake a special batch up -- just for you.

Regards,

(name protected for anonymity, mainly so that you don’t try to contact this person when you become wild with the desire to try Lisettes for yourself)

The email contained a luscious photo of row upon row of Lisettes, obviously freshly baked and just glazed.  I replied posthaste:

Dear _______,

Today is my birthday, and hearing from you is a lovely gift.  I'm Julie ________. My parents were _____ and _____, owner-proprietors of the shop ____________, in (the town of our childhood).  Liesel and her husband were close family friends, and Liesel worked in my parents' store along with other friends of their social circle.  She was a treasured member of the staff for many years.  I remember going to your house for Rosh Hashanah parties, and Liesel was always at our home for the many parties my parents had.  I was so inordinately fond of Lisettes as a child that I have long despaired of ever tasting them again, or being able to re-create the recipe for myself.  I often buy Elisen Lebkuchen at Christmas time, but it just isn't the same.  The beautiful picture of the Lisettes evokes a craving in me!

Thanks for contacting me -- and I'd be more than happy to have a batch of Lisettes!  I live in New York City with my fiancé (I'm going to be married in April), and my brother lives in Manhattan too -- he and his wife are about to have twins.  Although my mother passed away some years ago, my father still lives in Yonkers and we see him often -- he always love to hear when we've had contact with old family friends.

Best,

Julie

Long story short, it turned out that my new/old friend and his wife live only twenty blocks from G and myself.  After another flurry of emails, exchanges of memories, and trying to coordinate times, my friend contacted me again, saying that he and his wife had baked me a batch of Lisettes, and that they (the Lisettes) were waiting for me, snug in their tin, to come downtown and pick them up.   

Words fail me in trying to describe the delight of meeting these completely charming people.  I had never really known them – I was a child when they married (they had their wedding registry in my parents’ shop, and still had many items in their home from that time).  We talked of various family members, what they were and are doing.  Of course food was a big topic, since cooking and baking and eating well are threads of connection for both of our families.  They told me about their daughter, a journalist in Beijing, who has persuaded local people to begin growing vegetables organically.  We spoke of our deeply missed mothers, and how cooking their signature dishes brings them back to us.  And they told me the story of how they resurrected the recipe for Lisettes, as we sat down to cups of tea and a plate of the little cakes. 

Even more do words fail me when I try to describe what it was like to taste this sweet of my childhood after many, many years.  I was a tiny bit teary, thinking of childhood and holidays – the Christmas Eve party in my parents’ shop, when we would close early and my father would break out a case of champagne.  All the employees would bring in special treats to share.  It was kind of an alumni night, too – employees from years past would always show up on Christmas Eve, such was their devotion to my parents.    I remember Halina’s mother’s inimitable, melting Polish butter cookies, and Skeeter’s cognac-laced paté.  There were always delectable cheeses and spreads, as well as sweet treats.  And to my particular delight, there was always a big plate of Lisettes. 

As memories flooded my mind, so too were my tastebuds flooded with the particular flavor of ground hazelnuts and candied fruit, spiced to perfection and glazed with just enough chocolate-confectioners' sugar glaze.  I thought about the miracle that had just occurred, and how we now live in a world where, for better or worse, we can actually recover those people and even those experiences that may, once, have seemed truly lost to us. 

There will be no recipe for Lisettes published here, now or ever.  No matter how much I coveted being able to make these fabulous little cakes for myself, I would never even have asked, since it was clear to me that the recipe is a guarded family treasure.  However, without saying a word, my friends told me that they’d already had a family council, and that I would, eventually, be vouchsafed the recipe – on the condition, of course, that I keep the secret.  Deeply honored that they would want to share this with me, I promised.  And we made a date for next holiday season – to make Lisettes together – a day when we will all doubtless eat too many treats, and talk of life, love, family, food and connection, and our mothers’ legacies to us.   

The Disaster That Wasn't

The flavors of the past can be deceptive.  Do the foods we try to recreate seem to fail us because they don't, in actuality, live up to the treats upon which we once feasted?  Or are they imbued with the savor of nostalgia, a flavoring essence that defies the possibility of true resurrection?   

Not long ago, I had an exchange with my brother in the comments field of a post on this very blog.  The subject was cakes we'd eaten in our childhood, including a chocolate studded ring-shaped cake, glazed in more chocolate and drenched in rum.  It was made by a small French bakery called Le Chanticler in the town of our youth.  This was not the other French bakery which also existed in the town, Le Gourmet.  That was the one where every mouthful was rich with butter.  No, Le Chanticler made bread, tough little cookies and had just a few workhorse specialties.   Their "rum ring" was the only one my mother purchased with any regularity.

I decided that I would try to reconstruct this delicacy for my brother's birthday.  I further decided that I would do it in time for the justly-celebrated David Lebovitz's edition of Sugar High Friday, using a brand-name chocolate.  This way I could do a test-run and repeat the cake the following weekend for the birthday celebration. 

I bought some lovely Green & Black's organic chocolate, and proceeded to construct a recipe.  My memory of the cake was that it was similar in texture to a savarin or a rum baba, so I found an excellent brioche-style dough for savarin in Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking, and made it up with quantities of chopped dark chocolate folded into the dough.  It rose beautifully, it baked gorgeously, and received its soaking of rum syrup as well as its glaze of dark chocolate. 

Then we sliced it and tasted it. 

G saw my disappointed face, and shrugged.  "I think it tastes good," declared my loyal fiancé.  It did taste reasonably good.  It just didn't taste like the cake of my memory.  Instead, it tasted like very good brioche with chocolate in it that had been drenched in rum syrup and glazed in chocolate.  It was, in fact, a little bit bready.  Kind of more bready than cakey.  The cake of my memory had had that sodden yet supple quality of a good baba au rhum.  My rummy chocolatey bready ring didn't quite cut it, as far as I was concerned. 

I wrapped it up, put it in the fridge and ignored it quite pointedly for several days.  Since I didn't serve him any, G promptly forgot about it as well.  I didn't post the photos I'd taken of it during its rising and after its baking, and I didn't write a post about it for Sugar High Friday.  I was too busy snubbing the sad rummy thing taking up space in my refrigerator.  And I was too disheartened to try another run in time for my brother's birthday, especially since I wasn't quite sure how to remedy the recipe.  [Instead, I ended up making the same cake I'd made for him last year -- *King of Chocolate* David Lebovitz's German Chocolate Cake, with a few of my own adaptations.  It had been such a success that I thought "well, once a year is certainly not too often for this cake."  It was received once again with much acclaim, including somewhat overblown statements like "This isn't just the best cake you've ever made -- it's the best cake anyone's ever made." ]

But the rum ring that refused to live up to expectations continued sitting coolly in the depths of the fridge.  Finally I decided to take it to work for an afternoon staff meeting.  Hungry high school teachers will eat anything, especially if it's sweet.  Surprisingly, it didn't just get eaten.  It got gobbled, amid declarations of love and avowals of fidelity to this cake/bread, if only I would ever make it again.  Breaching my own disdain, I cut myself a small slice.  To my surprise, although it still was not the rum ring of blessed memory, it was quite delicious.  Unlike most cakes and people, it had benefitted substantially from a combined process of neglect and aging. 

I will try the rum ring again at some point, I think.  I'll probably find another recipe -- something eggier, chewier, springier somehow.  I'll soak it in more rum syrup, and see once again if I can't recreate the Chanticler's special cake.   I'll just try to bear in mind that while cake may be replicable, memory -- experience -- nostalgia -- is not.

Hunger of Memory: Turkey-Lentil Soup

On the day after Thanksgiving, my mother would always put the turkey frame up to boil with lentils and aromatic vegetables to make her very simple and delicious turkey lentil soup.  For years I ate this good soup the week after Thanksgiving, usually with crisply broiled Kosher frankfurters (for their beefy, garlicky flavor, rather than for any reasons of observance) on rye bread. 

The coming of age allows us the freedom to experiment, branch out and move away from our family traditions or at least play with different versions of them, exploring the exotic, coming to know for ourselves what we like.  Although I always make soup of some kind or another, most of my adult life I've made any and all kinds of turkey soup -- other than turkey lentil, that is -- on the day after Thanksgiving.  I've made turkey vegetable, turkey rice and turkey barley, as well as other variations too numerous to list and too far away in time to remember.  And it's not that I don't make lentil soup -- I make lentil soups all the time.  Sometimes I make a Spanish lentil soup with chorizo and spinach.  Then there's the mulligatawny, made with red lentils and coconut milk.  I love to make aromatic Moroccan harira with lamb and chickpeas as well as lentils; or there's a vegetarian lentil that I'm fond of, scented with cumin and copious quantities of garlic and mint.   But it's been a very long time since I made my mother's turkey lentil soup. 

This is the time of year when my own particular brand of seasonal affective disorder sets in.   I spend some time dwelling in the past, and sometimes I seem to get stuck there, at least for a bit.  I'm nostalgic for the way things were, in what seems like the long ago and far away.  I'm no longer a child, anticipating the holidays.  We grow up, we grow older, we lose people we love.  Those we're close to get married, and start spending their holidays in other family circles.  Friends move to other parts of the country or become estranged; beloved elders die. 

A good part of yesterday and a fair portion of today were laced with these broody, melancholic moments.   But each time I was ready to sink under the weight of my own thoughts, strong arms wrapped themselves around me and G said, simply, "I'm here."  That was all I needed in order to remember that indeed, I have a lot for which to be truly thankful.   And so suddenly I knew how to live inside some of my sorrow, the grief that never really goes away.  It seemed time, today, to come full circle, and invoke the spirit of my mother, five years gone, by making her traditional post-Thanksgiving soup.  I didn't even have to leave the house -- everything I needed was right here.  It was clearly meant to be. 

The soup is now made, and waiting in the refrigerator for tomorrow's dinner, to be eaten with crisply grilled Kosher frankfurters and rye bread.  I've changed just a couple things -- I tend to make the stock from the frame first, and then make the soup on that.  And I add leeks, and some shallots too.  But it's more or less the same recipe and really, the soup tastes almost exactly like hers, enough that it will bring her into the room with us as we eat it. 

Strong arms are wrapped around me as we make plans for the holiday traditions we've begun to evolve over the past few years -- Christmas Eve with my favorite cousin and her family; Christmas breakfast with my father; Christmas dinner and a movie, perhaps, with dear pals Nathalie and Josh. New Year's Eve will be à deux, as has always been our custom together, and maybe this year we'll host a New Year's Day fest.  Making plans always cheers me up.  And really, how sad can I be when I'm eating leftover pumpkin soufflé, maple pecan and caramel apple crumble pies, all topped with homemade cognac-scented whipped cream? 

Turkey Lentil Soup

Stock
1 turkey frame with bits of meat still clinging to the bones
10 cups of water, or enough to cover the frame
1 carrot, chunked
1 small whole onion
4 or 5 sprigs of parsley
1 stalk celery, broken into 3 or four pieces
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
a pinch of fresh or dried thyme
a pinch of fresh or dried sage

Soup
Turkey Stock
3 cups lentils, green/brown, red, or a combination
3 leeks, cleaned and sliced
1 large onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and in small chunks
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Combine all the stock ingredients, and boil for about an hour or an hour and a half, until you have a rich turkey stock.  Strain.  Pick the turkey meat off the frame, and reserve.  Put the stock back in the pot
with all the other soup ingredients.  Boil gently until lentils are very tender and partially dissolving into the soup, at least 45 minutes, but perhaps as much as an hour and a half..  Give an immersion blender a quick spin through one corner of your soup to thicken it up a bit.  Don't puree it all -- you want the lovely texture of the lentils and vegetables, too.  Add the picked turkey meat back into the soup.  Taste, and adjust seasoning.     Serve with grilled frankfurters -- or maybe just some good bread and cheese and a salad.