Persimmons on fire

I read an interesting article on how to write a blog post. The advice was to delete the first and last paragraphs, so this is a very short first paragraph. No deletion required.

Christmas dinner came together without a hitch, and in a rather effortless fashion. Brother Joe and his wife Nancy sent us a "honey baked ham". We tried champagne and sherry with the ham, but with the leftovers on Boxing Day tried this Simply Recipes Honey Mulled Wine which is also recommended.

After our late afternoon Christmas Day dinner, we had John's famous flaming persimmon pudding. His mother used to serve flaming puddings, with decorations of holly and berries. Here is a video of the pudding:

Courtesy of John, here is the persimmon pudding recipe - his adaptation from the "California Heritage Cookbook" by the Pasadena Junior League.

Persimmon Pudding
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon salad oil
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1 cup Hachiya persimmons, sieved
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/4 cup chopped candied ginger, no smaller than 1/8" chunks

In a mixing bowl, beat one cup sugar and the oil into the well-beaten egg. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, spices, salt, baking powder and soda. Add this alternately with the milk to the creamed mixture. Mix in the persimmon, vanilla, nuts, and dates. Generously butter and sugar a pudding mold with a hollow center; the sugar coating will slightly caramelize when lit on fire providing a light shell crunch on the exterior.

Bake in the covered mold set in a pan of hot water in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until done. The pudding may be steamed in a water bath on top of the stove for 4 hours, or until done. Unmold onto a serving plate. Use waxed paper between the lid and body of the mold if boiling.

To flame the pudding, warm 1/4 cup brandy, pour over pudding and light. Alternatively, pour 1/4 cup 151 rum over the cake and light (do not warm - read warnings on the label!)

Pudding may be served with a hot lemon sauce, but we prefer it plain.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanks, here's some pie

One of the projects that the Rotary Club of Napa supports is the Pathway Home. Our club hosts the annual "Cycle for Sight & Rotary Ride for Veterans". Members of our club are very involved in activities with Pathway Home veterans, including special outings, regular bowling nights, volunteering at the Veterans Home, distributing a home made quilt to each veteran, and of course raising money for this privately funded effort. Veterans in the program may have traumatic brain injuries, post traumatic stress disorder, physical injuries, and sometimes disfiguring injuries. Please click on the links to learn more about the program, and plan on riding or volunteering at the next Rotary Ride on Saturday, April 21, 2012.

One of the little things we do is make homemade pies for the Pathway Home veterans for Thanksgiving. Yesterday the Rotary pie delivering crew requested the recipe for the pie I brought - so here it is. I hope the pie made the trip safely all the way from Napa to Yountville. There were some hungry looking fellows driving the truck.

I used the recipe published by David Lebovitz on his blog. I generally followed the recipe, as David recommends that practice when first making a recipe. This kind of pie - containing pecans, chocolate and bourbon - is one that I have known for years as a "Kentucky Derby Pie". There is a similar trademarked name. A lovely recipe for a similar pie can be found in "The South, the Beautiful Cookbook" - which uses ground pecans in the crust as well as unsweetened chocolate and dark corn syrup in the filling. Since I have always made a pie crust with a pastry blender, I thought I would try this method for making the crust. David also recommends NOT pre-baking the crust so that the filling and crust fuse together. We have not cut the second pie I made for our Thanksgiving, so I will report on the results in the comments section.
I did not have quite enough light corn syrup, so added a bit of dark corn syrup. The dark chocolate chips I used were 60% chocolate by Ghiradelli. These are large chips.

Chocolate Pecan Pie by David Lebovitz

The crust:
1 1/4 cups (175g) flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 ounces (115g) unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into 1-inch (3cm) cubes
4 tablespoons (60ml) ice water

The chocolate-pecan filling:
3 large eggs
3/4 cup (150g) packed dark brown sugar
2/3 cup (200g) light corn syrup, rice syrup or golden syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (30g) melted butter, salted or unsalted
2 tablespoons bourbon
1 2/3 cups (190g) toasted pecans, very coarsely chopped
3/4 cup (120g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

1. To make the crust, mix together the flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl or in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. (Or use a food processor.)
2. Add the cubed butter and mix until the butter pieces are broken up and about the size of small peas.
3. Add the ice water and mix just until the dough comes together. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill for at least 30 minutes.
4. Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch (30cm) round. Transfer the dough into a 9-inch ( cm) pie plate letting the dough ease into the pan, rather than pressing it in. Tuck the overhanging dough underneath the area above the rim of the pie plate, to create a double width of dough, then crimp the edges and refrigerate until ready to fill.
5. Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC) and position the oven rack to the center of the oven.
6. In a large bowl, which together the eggs, brown sugar, syrup, vanilla, salt, melted butter, and bourbon.
7. Stir in the pecans and the chocolate chips then scrape the filling into the pie shell and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the filling puffs up slightly but still feels slightly jiggly and moist in the center.
Let pie cool completely before slicing.

Serving: Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream is a good accompaniment to pecan pie.
Storage: Dough can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to three days, or frozen for up to two months.
The pie is best eaten the same day although will keep for up to three days, at room temperature.

To go with the pie, my dear husband John made some of his special vanilla ice cream. We may have enough left for our Thanksgiving dessert later today!

Michael Pollan is rather green

This is a picture of the unripe "Michael Pollan" tomatoes from Wild Boar Farms taken this afternoon in the garden. According to the catalog, "Fruit with no BER (Blossom End Rot) developed a pointed nipple on the bottom. Taste is very different from the Green Zebra. Much less tartness, more mild with good sweetness. Very positive response at the Farmers Market. They stuck out and people really liked the flavor. As I ran out later in the season, customers kept asking about them."

As you can see, no BER on these tomatoes. The color is untouched - they are really this green. The plant (along with many others) was purchased back in April after a tomato demonstration at the "Pumpkin Patch". Most of the plants are now over six feet tall, after following the advice on how to promote top growth on indeterminate plants.



These are immature "Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye". Some day these tomatoes will be the heirloom tomatoes of our time.

I've been re-reading "Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins" by Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Allen Lacy - two of the great garden writers of all time. Elizabeth Lawrence was the Sunday garden writer for the "Charlotte Observer" and Allen Lacy was garden writer for the "New York Times" and the "Wall Street Journal".



According to Miss Lawrence:

"Reading the market bulletins is like walking through a country garden with sun on the flowers, in their very names: princess feather, four-o-clock, love-in-a-mist, bachelor's buttons, Joseph's coat, touch-me-not, kiss-me-at-the-garden-gate, ladyfingers, redbird bush, rainbow fairy, pink sunburst." She could just list the common names of plants and have a lyrical passage.

The market bulletins were published by the departments of agriculture of mostly southern states. Some may still be printed. Southern gardeners (mostly women) traded seeds, plants and cuttings for "pin money". Miss Lawrence tried to verify the botanical names of many of the plants - and added to her garden along the way. Eudora Welty seemed to have played a pivotal role in introducing Miss Lawrence to the market bulletins. It's comforting to know that in this homogenized United States of Generica, such places and practices persist - even in Napa and Suisun, California.


Juli's yellow french beanstalk ~ traded John's red pick-up truck for these magic beans, now about nine feet tall ~ growing in a half wine barrel ~ trellised with two large stacked tomato cages ~ pretty soon we'll be able to climb up to the sky.

stagger lee

The internet makes it possible to re-connect to a long vanished past in many surprising ways. We can now access maps, photos, documents, film, and virtual cemeteries. A small and growing group of alumni from design school began posting notes and a few photos in a facebook group, and now the archive has grown to include all kinds of ephemera from the intervening years. We are spread across thousands of miles, and took wildly different paths. The postings have become more and more creative and are as unlike the dry university sponsored page as can be imagined.

There are also music and cultural connections that are meaningless to those who never lived in our little slice of the south. Another southerner posted a recent "status update" about going dancing - western swing dancing - and I posted a wikipedia link to the official state dances. Of course I commented that the Shag is the official dance of two states. Her response to the video was that it looked like "Riverdance gets drunk at a fraternity party!"

"Shag:The Movie" - starring Annabeth Gish, Phoebe Cates and Bridget Fonda shows the southern beach culture and dance. For those in UK countries, it is not what you might think! A road trip movie... check it out.

Napa fourth of July

This year we stayed home for fourth of July, along with everyone else in town.  We were invited to a wonderful barbecue - and the host was surprised that almost everyone accepted.  A last minute email went out to round up additional tables for the feast.  This was not just any barbecue, but a southern (specifically North Carolina) barbecue.  The menu included pulled pork, corn on the cob, sliced fresh tomatoes, black-eyed peas, cooked greens, potato salad, cucumber salad, okra and tomatoes, cole slaw, soft rolls, Napa wines, pecan pie, black bottom pie... Guests brought some starters - including pimento cheese, chopped liver, deviled eggs, and catfish pate.







Earlier in the day we had a home grown parade - with the Wells Fargo stagecoach as the big "shew". 

After our leisurely afternoon, we ambled down to the river to watch fireworks.  




It was a great day to think about Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton - subjects of three books I've read this past month.

Hoppin' John

This note is not about husband John hoppin' around the rose garden or brother John hoppin' around the golf course. It is about the southern tradition of eating black eyed peas on New Year's Day to bring good luck in the new year. We can certainly use some this year, so here is a basic recipe for "Hoppin' John".

4-6 slices thick bacon, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
black pepper and salt to taste
1 cup brown rice (any mixture - I used brown plus red wehani)
2 1/2 cups water (to start)
1 -20 oz. bag frozen black eyed peas

Cook bacon in large pot. As it begins to brown add onion and garlic. Add salt and freshly ground pepper. Cook till onions are soft. Add water and rice, cover and simmer about 35 minutes. Add black eyed peas (add additional water if it gets too dry) and simmer about 25-30 minutes more. Do not use "fresh" (reconstituted dry peas) - frozen peas are fresh frozen and the only way to get fresh peas in winter! Some recipes dress this up in many ways. Simple or fancy - you choose.

Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays - with the focus on food, family and friends. There are no gifts to buy, nothing to decorate, no special toasts, religious observations or patriotic events to celebrate - simply food, family and friends. These are things we can all be thankful for - and thankful for the opportunity to spend time together.

The high school band decided to sell organic free range Willie Bird turkeys as a fund-raiser. What could be better? Willie (or Wilhelmina) roasted perfectly in the Wedgewood, while other dishes and "butter bombs" warmed in the second oven.

Late roses and fruits from the backyard decorated the room, and votive candles made a "ring of fire" on the late afternoon table.

After dinner, as dark descended we walked in the quiet neighborhood. Then the fire beckoned for a rousing game of Fictionary. Mythical druid priests won out every time over more prosaic pseudo-definitions - or so it seemed. Mysterious sailing knots seemed to win also.

Men at work

Men who cook - a new phenomenon in my life.

John is a very fine cook - and we discovered that Anna's new boyfriend is also a cook! Anna and I found ourselves in supporting roles this Thanksgiving as the men wielding sharp knives went about their business of cutting, chopping, slicing, mixing, proofing, baking, stuffing, churning, mashing - even running through a french food mill - all the ingredients for the Thanksgiving feast.

I was allowed to make gravy, salad and set the table, and Anna was allowed to mash the potatoes. It was a heavenly treat for us all! I made the wine also, but back in 2002 - so the work was done some time ago.

Guests also brought orange shells stuffed with sweet potatoes, roasted root vegetables, buttermilk pies (a special southern recipe), pumpkin pie and apple pie. John whipped up a batch of his homemade vanilla ice cream as part of the dessert.


These are some happy girls with a big Wedgewood stove in the background. Mission "how to move a stove" was accomplished before Thanksgiving.

Piano Magic

My husband John Poole and I hosted our first eight hands piano salon on Sunday, October 26, 2008.

When John began moving into our home late last fall, his two lovely grand pianos came as part of the package. I discovered early in our relationship that he not only plays piano, but publishes works for eight hands. Many of these works are 19th century symphonic transcriptions - and if you can imagine a symphony score and translating that into 40 fingers on 2 pianos - you start to get the picture. Two pianists on each of two pianos playing piano ensemble... I will set up a link to "Editions Poole" in a future post.

There were 7 pianists (I don't count as I am not in the same league) - John, Jeremy, Ann, Melissa, Mary Kay, George, and Matthew. Four of them at a time played all afternoon and several friends stopped by to see and hear something they had never experienced before.

In honor of the occasion, I fixed some southern comfort food - with John's help. Corn muffins, cabernet jelly (southern Napa county), Brunswick stew, deviled eggs, fresh vegetables, carrot cake with freshly made double vanilla ice cream, iced tea and home made Napa wine from Leap of Faith...



















Here is a picture of the pianists in fuzzy action, with John on the left: