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The weekend before last I nearly killed Niece Two. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but at the time I didn’t know that I’d be joking about it a week later. It started innocently enough. She was chatting away, as most shockingly verbal three and a half year olds are wont to do, and exclaimed, apropos of nothing—non-sequiturs being another trait of the shockingly verbal three and a half year old—how exciting it was to watch my brother-in-law use a nutcracker on a walnut. “It has a ginormous shell and then he cracks it and inside is a really, really big nut!”
When I was a kid my grandparents always had a large, shallow bowl on their coffee table filled with dusty walnuts and almonds still in their shells. A metal cracker rested on top of the nuts for when my grandfather was in a nutty mood. He’d make a big show out of cracking the walnuts, and thinking they’d be as yummy as peanuts, I always accepted his shelled offering. Somehow I had nut amnesia and would forget how unlike a yummy peanut the walnut was, pop one in my mouth and regret it as soon as the roof of my mouth invariably began to itch.
With this memory in mind I asked Niece Two, “Do you eat the nuts Daddy cracks?”
“Yes! I love them!” I was skeptical.
“Really? You’re sure you eat walnuts?”
“Yes! I’m super positive.” Big mistake. Never believe a three and a half year old.
Earlier in the day my father had been commanding everyone who walked through the kitchen to eat one of the bananas that were rapidly passing their prime. I refused to comply because one, I am a woman of a certain age and don’t eat something because my father tells me to, and two, I am really not a banana fan. I like my fresh fruit to quench my thirst, not induce it. But I do like the flavor of banana and thought I would donate the two I was told to eat to a baking project with the nieces.
Involving them in the decision process is always a negotiation. Niece One thought muffins would be a good idea and Niece Two lobbied for cupcakes, despite the fact that she has rejected every little cake I have ever made for her.
Knowing Niece One is an older sister in the model of her aunt (me), I just sat back and watched as she skillfully convinced her little sister that really, muffins and cupcakes are the same thing. (For all of you who don’t realize that a blueberry muffin is basically a vanilla cupcake with a handful of berries thrown in, she is right.) Niece Two was swayed and we moved on to assembling our supplies, including the half cup of walnuts I’d found in my mother’s freezer.
The great thing about the recipe I found was that the ingredients and the labor were easily divisible by two. Each girl got a banana to smush, an egg to crack, two big splashes of wet ingredients, two cups of flour to pour, etc. All was going swimmingly and their lessons in sharing were put into practice beautifully. The last step involved each niece grabbing a handful of the walnuts I had pre-chopped and tossing it into the big bowl of batter. I handled making sure everything was mixed completely and then ran inside to get an ice cream scoop to portion out each muffin.
We were almost done filling the pans when I noticed a rash on Niece Two’s right hand. Now normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. She is actually a pretty rash-prone girl and my sister is constantly rubbing her with various doctor recommended creams after her bath. But this wasn’t an ordinary gathering of a few red splotches. This thing was on the move. I literally watched as red welts crept up her arm, across her shoulder, up her neck and around her tiny face, resting for good on her forehead.
“OH MY GOD!” I screamed, forgetting the first rule of taking care of children—never get hysterical if they aren’t.
“What? What?” she said, her eyes searching mine for reassurance I was unable to give.
That’s when my sister swooped in, calmly but quickly scooped up her daughter and headed for the medicine cabinet.
At that moment Niece One, always the expert, shook her head and delivered her verdict, “It was the walnuts.”
“But she only touched a few!” I said defensively, feeling so guilty and wondering what my sister was doing in the bathroom.
“Yeah, she ate some batter too. I saw her.” They must have been licking their fingers when I went inside to get the scoop. Another lesson learned. Never leave children unattended with a bowl of sweet, uncooked anything.
My sister returned with poor, little Splotch-o who had just been dosed up with Benadryl and seemed entirely cheerful. And then the most amazing thing happened. As quickly as the tide of rash had overcome her, it receded. It really just disappeared as if it had never been there. To say I was relieved is almost making a mockery of just how anxious I had been. I was elated and realized I exhaled for the first time in a half hour. And then another amazing thing happened: the major side effect of the Benadryl hit Niece Two almost as hard as the rash. One minute she was laughing and eating her grilled cheese. The next her head hung from her neck and her eyes practically rolled to the back of her head like a junkie. The girl who stopped napping a year ago slept for two hours.
When all was said and done I didn’t even want to look at these muffins. But I did and Niece One and I ate them. And as hard as they were to enjoy without the newly allergic co-chef, they were delicious, moist without being gummy (a pitfall of many a banana quick bread), sweet without being cloying and just banana-y enough. When the weekend was over I packed them up in Ziploc bags, excited to know that they’d be waiting for me on my next visit. Except they won’t be. A few days later Irene caused a power outage that my parents lived with until the Wednesday after the storm. I’m very sorry for that. And I’m also very sorry for the overwhelming loss of a freezer full of my baked goods. Along with the banana muffins we’ll have to toss half a pound cake, a batch of coffee blond brownies, and a bag full of pre-scooped cookie dough. Now I need to focus on rebuilding our sweet supply. This time with no walnuts.
Try Not to Kill Anyone Banana Muffins
from Diana Rattray, About.com
Printer Friendly Version
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large bananas, ripe, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional!!)
Directions
Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.
Cream butter and sugar with an electric hand-held mixer until light and fluffy. 
Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add bananas and vanilla and beat until smooth.
Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture, alternating with the sour milk or buttermilk. Stir just until dry ingredients are moistened; gently stir in the optional chopped nuts.
Spoon banana muffin batter into liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake at 400° for about 15 to 18 minutes, or until tops are lightly browned. Cool banana muffins in pan on rack for a few minutes; turn banana muffins out onto rack to cool longer. Serve banana muffins warm.
Makes 18 muffins.
Like so many others, I contributed towards making The Help a bestselling book. So, it was with great anticipation that I paid my $13.50 to see the film adaptation shortly after it hit the big screen. The movie does not disappoint. It’s a graceful translation of a story from one medium to another, something that is not very often done well, and I cried as hard as the credits rolled as I had when I turned the last page.
I am a sucker for sentimentality and I’m sure there are critics and purists who would take issue with the swells of music or the lingering shots over the stoic, privately wounded expression of Viola Davis. To them I say, “Be quiet.” If something moves and reaches you, does it really matter if it isn’t the highest of art?
Despite depicting the inhumanity of the Jim Crow South, the movie is ultimately “feel-good”—the main character gets to realize her dream and the Jackson, Mississippi housekeepers whose lives she chronicles are brave enough to participate in the Civil Rights movement that will change their world and ours forever. You walk out full of righteous indignation thinking, “How is it possible that segregation existed? Why was racism acceptable?” And, “Thank goodness that time has passed.”
But has it?
Until second grade I attended a very progressive, heavily diverse grade school. I don’t remember learning to read, write or add but I do remember learning about Dr. King and our teachers, Peter and Lenore, leading us in the various spirituals and folk songs that became anthems of the era, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” “Let My People Go,” and “We Are Marching to Pretoria.” (Which I confused with ‘Peoria’ and could never figure out what Illinois had to do with South Africa but was too embarrassed to ask). We also went to the movies a lot and the Friday we saw Sounder was totally devastating to me. Again, dealing with the injustice of the pre-Civil Rights South, I was so shaken by the film I had nightmares for weeks. Luckily a few months later a friend’s mother took us to a taping of The $10,000 Pyramid when one of the film’s stars, Cicely Tyson, was a celebrity contestant. Seeing she had swapped her sharecropper’s rags for something gorgeous and glam was very reassuring and I was able to move on with my childhood.
In those days my family had a housekeeper named Mary Otey. Mary was sweet and fat and from Norfolk, Virginia. I never knew her age but she was older than my parents and younger than my grandparents. She had a ton of mostly grown children and entertained me with stories of her son Sonny’s exploits (I loved that her son was named Sonny) or daughter Deborah’s achievements in school. Mary wore her hair like the Peanuts’ Lucy in the winter and Violet in the summer. Unlike The Help’s wig-wearing Aibileen, Mary’s hair was real, although her teeth were not, something I learned when she came to Connecticut with us in August and I saw her full set of dentures in a cup by the sink in her bathroom one night. But when she first started to work for my parents she didn’t sleep over and on the evenings when my mom would ask her to babysit, she would put us to bed and then sit in a stiff–backed, wooden chair in the dining room, reading the Bible or just dozing off. I remember suggesting she sit on the couch in the living room or watch our only TV in my parents’ bedroom. I knew Mom and Dad would want her to be comfortable. She looked at me like I was nuts and just shook her head no.
On one of those babysitting nights she was eating her dinner, a favorite concoction of spaghetti, ketchup and a hard-boiled egg, and I was talking to her at the kitchen table. I was learning about Pharoah and the enslavement of the Jews in Sunday school and I had a great idea I thought I should share with her; if all the Jewish people and all the black people worked together we could end discrimination completely! She indulgently nodded in agreement and went back to twirling her pasta. Thinking about that now, I am mortified. What must she have thought that this seven year-old living a comfortable life on the Upper West Side was suggesting anything to a black woman who had grown up in the segregated South? Who was I to draw a parallel of any kind?
Walking out of the movie last week of course I was thinking about Mary and about food. I was starving, and much of the film involves cooking. Passing Magnolia Bakery on my way home I spotted a pink layer cake on a stand and was reminded of the strawberry birthday cake Mary made for her daughter that I wasn’t allowed to touch. And I thought of Minny’s infamous chocolate pie in The Help. The pie plays a key role in the film, a plot spoiler I will not give away. Last month’s Food and Wine had a big piece on the food in the film and provided a recipe for the pie, which of course I had to try. (For those of you familiar with the story don't worry, Minny's special touch is omitted.)
When I was gathering my ingredients I noticed a front page story on the cover of the Times I had just brought in my apartment and thrown on the counter. Kim Severson reported on the investigation into the horrific death of James Craig Anderson, “a middle-aged black family man with a quick wit and a demanding sense of style.” Deryl Dedmon, a white teenager, has been charged with the crime and could be facing the death penalty. The FBI has been brought in and questions surrounding the motivation for the killing are being explored. My heart sunk. The crime occurred in Jackson, Mississippi.
So, while you’re eating this rich, brownie meets fudge pie—so sweet and chocolatey and only complete when topped with freshly whipped cream—take a minute to think about the Aibileens, Minnys and Marys you might know. Maybe they were your grandmothers or aunts, housekeepers or friends. And think about how far we’ve come and how far we have to go in our march to Peoria.
Minny's Chocolate Pie for Mary
From Food & Wine, August 2011
Ingredients
1 packaged pie dough crust, such as Pillsbury
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
Whipped cream, for serving
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°. Ease the pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate and crimp the edges decoratively. Prick the crust lightly with a fork.
Line the crust with foil or parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans.
Bake for 15 minutes or until set. Remove the foil and weights and bake for about 5 minutes longer, just until the crust is dry but not browned.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk the sugar with the cocoa powder, butter, eggs, evaporated milk, vanilla and salt until smooth.
Pour the filling into the pie shell
and bake for about 45 minutes, until the filling is set around the edges but a little jiggly in the center. Cover the crust with strips of foil halfway through baking. Transfer the pie to a rack and let cool completely before cutting into wedges. Serve with whipped cream.
Yield: 8 slices
Awhile back there was an essay in the Times that has stuck in my craw ever since. (I actually don’t know what a craw is, but I like the sound of it.) The author was bemoaning the results of the extensive nips, tucks, and injections sought by women to stave off the signs of aging—the inability to move the muscles required to convey emotion, the loss of characteristics that made them them etc. All concerns I can understand. No one looks good wearing a mask of her own face. But the piece also raised the question of how someone should respond if one’s friend has crossed the line from the use of subtle fillers and changes to “the danger zone.” “How do you warn her without offense? And if her friends don’t, who will?” Although the author’s only suggestion was to remind the youth-seeker of her inherent, natural fabulousness, my issue was really, why is it anyone’s business to tell someone else what she should do with her appearance? Ostensibly, if the woman is taking these measures, she is doing so because she wants to. As for anyone else’s opinion, I’d like to say, “Who asked you?”
In an age when anonymous on-line comments allow bullies to trash-talk whomever they want without taking any sort of responsibility, it isn’t surprising that people think expressing their opinions, no matter how inappropriate, is warranted. At the same time, with so many of us putting our lives out there for all to see, in a sense I can understand the argument that if you’re opening your mouth on-line you’re asking for feedback. Even if all you really want is to express yourself and hope everyone else agrees with you and if they don’t, please be quiet. That’s how I feel about life in general. I know there are those who get a charge from lively debate and being challenged. I hate it.
But appearance is a whole other thing. I had a friend who once got a drastic haircut I didn’t like. This was not one of those cases where you get a desperate phone call from a pal crying on a street corner after a horrible salon experience. She liked her hair. And who was I to disagree? I kept my mouth shut for the many years during which she maintained what I thought was an unflattering style. She was a grown woman. It wasn’t up to me to remind her of her fabulousness in the hopes that she would grow out her mane. Back to the idea that everything you need in life you learn in kindergarten, I think we all need to remind ourselves, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Like everything else, there is an exception to this rule; that would be when someone solicits your opinion. Then all bets are off, but the gloves should stay on. For example, if your friend asks, “Do you like my new skirt?” and you think it is way too short you might suggest, “Yes, but I think pairing it with dark tights would be the best way to go.” Not, “You look like a cheap hooker and I can see your cellulite.” Save those kind of remarks for when you are commenting anonymously on a photo you’ve studied of a celebrity who shouldn’t be wearing a bikini on TMZ. And just in case you’ve forgotten, I want to make sure everyone knows that there is one question that should never be answered honestly if the answer in your mind is “Yes.” Whenever you are asked by your partner, “Do these jeans make me look fat?” just say, “No.” Any other answer can’t lead to anything good and the fact is no one is blind and the person asking already knows the answer to that question. No need to rub salt into the flab.
And speaking of salt, the same exception also applies to the food someone has lovingly prepared for you. When you are presented with a dish the only thing to say is, “Yum.” If by chance it is truly inedible the chef will be aware of this and will whisk away the offending meal. But if you are asked, “What do you think?” remember you are not sitting at the Top Chef Judges’ Table. Your job is not to deliver a verdict, it is to graciously compliment or, barring the ability to lie if the food is not to your liking, say, “This must have taken you all day. Thank you so much!”
I speak to this point from experience. Many years ago I was dating a guy who was scheduled to undergo a laparoscopic procedure the day I was to leave for a long planned family vacation. (I should add that we were teetering on the mutual break-up brink so it wasn’t odd that I was going to be out of town during his time of need.) Knowing I would be away I enlisted a friend to deliver a batch of blondies I had made to the hospital. This was before I had any remote understanding of what purpose specific ingredients served in a baked good. Although I had baked these blondies many times before, that day I decided to cut back on the sugar, thinking it seemed like a lot. Because I wanted my friend to be able to deliver an intact foil pan of the chewy bars I didn’t cut them, or taste them, before handing them off to her. When I called him the day after the operation to see how he was feeling I made the mistake of asking if he’d received the sweet delivery. “Uh-huh,” he groggily mumbled through his Vicodin haze, “They were a little dry.” Can you believe? He couldn’t just say “Thank you”? The fact is I am sure they were dry. Part of brown sugar’s job is to keep things moist and omitting some without making up for it in another way is sure to result in a compromised texture.
I hadn’t made these blondies in years and I’m not sure why. Maybe I was wounded more deeply by that experience than I’d like to admit? Who knows. But they are great. Yes, they do contain a lot of brown sugar. But, the coffee cuts through the sweetness as does using good dark chocolate chips. I’ve broken the no-nut rule here because the pecans really do add so much. They too distract from the sweetness and their crunch complements the chewiness perfectly. So make them for someone you love and if anyone dares to take issue with them (they won’t—I promise), remember to say, “Who asked you?” I wish I had.
Who Asked You? Coffee Blond Brownies
Adapted from The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook, Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins, 1984
Printer Friendly Version
Ingredients
1 lb dark brown sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons espresso powder
1 Tablespoon hot water
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons vanilla
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli 60% Cacao Chips)
Directions
Heat the brown sugar and butter in a medium-size saucepan over medium-low heat until the butter melts. Dissolve the coffee in the hot water and stir into the butter mixture. Pour into a medium bowl and let cool to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 350. Butter an 13x9-inch baking pan.
When the butter mixture is cool, beat in the eggs and vanilla with a hand-held mixer.
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together and stir into the butter mixture with a wooden spoon.
Stir in the pecans and chocolate.
Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan with a rubber spatula. Bake until lightly browned, 20-25 minutes. Do not over-bake.
Cool completely and cut into 2-inch squares.
Yield: 28-35 brownies
The weekend before last I nearly killed Niece Two. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but at the time I didn’t know that I’d be joking about it a week later. It started innocently enough. She was chatting away, as most shockingly verbal three and a half year olds are wont to do, and exclaimed, apropos of nothing—non-sequiturs being another trait of the shockingly verbal three and a half year old—how exciting it was to watch my brother-in-law use a nutcracker on a walnut. “It has a ginormous shell and then he cracks it and inside is a really, really big nut!”
When I was a kid my grandparents always had a large, shallow bowl on their coffee table filled with dusty walnuts and almonds still in their shells. A metal cracker rested on top of the nuts for when my grandfather was in a nutty mood. He’d make a big show out of cracking the walnuts, and thinking they’d be as yummy as peanuts, I always accepted his shelled offering. Somehow I had nut amnesia and would forget how unlike a yummy peanut the walnut was, pop one in my mouth and regret it as soon as the roof of my mouth invariably began to itch.
Involving them in the decision process is always a negotiation. Niece One thought muffins would be a good idea and Niece Two lobbied for cupcakes, despite the fact that she has rejected every little cake I have ever made for her.
Knowing Niece One is an older sister in the model of her aunt (me), I just sat back and watched as she skillfully convinced her little sister that really, muffins and cupcakes are the same thing. (For all of you who don’t realize that a blueberry muffin is basically a vanilla cupcake with a handful of berries thrown in, she is right.) Niece Two was swayed and we moved on to assembling our supplies, including the half cup of walnuts I’d found in my mother’s freezer.
The great thing about the recipe I found was that the ingredients and the labor were easily divisible by two. Each girl got a banana to smush, an egg to crack, two big splashes of wet ingredients, two cups of flour to pour, etc. All was going swimmingly and their lessons in sharing were put into practice beautifully. The last step involved each niece grabbing a handful of the walnuts I had pre-chopped and tossing it into the big bowl of batter. I handled making sure everything was mixed completely and then ran inside to get an ice cream scoop to portion out each muffin.
We were almost done filling the pans when I noticed a rash on Niece Two’s right hand. Now normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. She is actually a pretty rash-prone girl and my sister is constantly rubbing her with various doctor recommended creams after her bath. But this wasn’t an ordinary gathering of a few red splotches. This thing was on the move. I literally watched as red welts crept up her arm, across her shoulder, up her neck and around her tiny face, resting for good on her forehead.
“OH MY GOD!” I screamed, forgetting the first rule of taking care of children—never get hysterical if they aren’t.
“But she only touched a few!” I said defensively, feeling so guilty and wondering what my sister was doing in the bathroom.
My sister returned with poor, little Splotch-o who had just been dosed up with Benadryl and seemed entirely cheerful. And then the most amazing thing happened. As quickly as the tide of rash had overcome her, it receded. It really just disappeared as if it had never been there. To say I was relieved is almost making a mockery of just how anxious I had been. I was elated and realized I exhaled for the first time in a half hour. And then another amazing thing happened: the major side effect of the Benadryl hit Niece Two almost as hard as the rash. One minute she was laughing and eating her grilled cheese. The next her head hung from her neck and her eyes practically rolled to the back of her head like a junkie. The girl who stopped napping a year ago slept for two hours.
When all was said and done I didn’t even want to look at these muffins. But I did and Niece One and I ate them. And as hard as they were to enjoy without the newly allergic co-chef, they were delicious, moist without being gummy (a pitfall of many a banana quick bread), sweet without being cloying and just banana-y enough. When the weekend was over I packed them up in Ziploc bags, excited to know that they’d be waiting for me on my next visit. Except they won’t be. A few days later Irene caused a power outage that my parents lived with until the Wednesday after the storm. I’m very sorry for that. And I’m also very sorry for the overwhelming loss of a freezer full of my baked goods. Along with the banana muffins we’ll have to toss half a pound cake, a batch of coffee blond brownies, and a bag full of pre-scooped cookie dough. Now I need to focus on rebuilding our sweet supply. This time with no walnuts.
Try Not to Kill Anyone Banana Muffins
Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add bananas and vanilla and beat until smooth.
Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture, alternating with the sour milk or buttermilk. Stir just until dry ingredients are moistened; gently stir in the optional chopped nuts.
Spoon banana muffin batter into liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake at 400° for about 15 to 18 minutes, or until tops are lightly browned. Cool banana muffins in pan on rack for a few minutes; turn banana muffins out onto rack to cool longer. Serve banana muffins warm.
Makes 18 muffins.
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