JULY 4, 2016

Boiled potatoes, still hot...with skins, or without...

...diced celery...

...lemon juice...

...olive oil...

...mayonnaise...

...all together give you

*Fourth of July Potato Salad*

YUM!

A STONE IN THE BEANS

This morning I was preparing dried beans for baking, and found amongst them a good-sized stone. "Ah," I thought, "there must some connection between a stone in the beans, and art-making." All through breakfast I toyed with this idea. Finding a stone in the beans was like...finding a mistake in my spelling? Finding a clumsy line in my drawing? No, the stone in the bean wasn't just a mistake.  It was totally out of place. It could even be dangerous---if an unwary diner bit down on it with tooth-cracking gusto. So---the stone was like a flourescent color in a painting of pastels? Or like a brand-new character suddenly popping up at the end of a story---so jarring that an editor would reject the entire project out of hand?

Bother! I couldn't come up with anything I liked. Besides which, it was time to put the beans into the oven and sit down at my drawing board. So there's no moral or piece of wisdom attached to this posting. Except...

Sometimes a stone in the beans is . . . just a stone in the beans. 

As a consolation prize, here's my mother's baked bean recipe, slightly altered by me:

MOM'S BAKED BEANS

Soak 1 pound Maine Soldier beans overnight in plenty of water. The next morning, drain them well, discarding the soaking liquid. Cover with fresh water, bring to a boil, and simmer until the skins of the beans split when you remove a few from the pot and blow on them. Put a peeled, quartered (or chopped up, if you wish) medium-sized onion in the bottom of the bean pot. Strain out the beans from the water and add them to the pot. Pour over the top 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 teaspoon ground mustard, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Add enough hot cooking liquid to reach the top of the beans. Cover and bake for 6 hours at 300, adding boiling cooking liquid or boiling water occasionally to keep the liquid near the top of the beans. 

For Mom's version, omit the olive oil; instead lay a chunk of salt pork, fat side up, on top of the beans before you put the pot into the oven.

ARTISTS AND FOOD: MY GRANDFATHER

Ernest William Watson was a pencil artist, watercolorist, print maker, author, and teacher.  He co-founded Watson-Guptill Publications; the magazine, American Artist; and The Berkshire Summer School of Art, in Monterey, Massachusetts, one of the first summer art schools in the country.  (Click here for two of the many links for Ernest: http://www.americanlegacygallery.com/artistPage.php?aid=102&cid=6 OR http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/results/page=1&num=10&image=0&view=0&name=&title=&keywords=&type=&subject=&number=&id=5255)

    Ernest was not content to simply practise his art.  It seemed to me his entire career demonstrated that, besides his passion for art and art-making, he had a tremendous desire to communicate and pass that passion on to others.  He continued that tradition with me. From the time I was a child, and I began to visit him in New York, he followed my artistic development with interest and encouragement; took me to the city's many museums; presented me with special books that he thought would interest and intrigue me.

     But he didn't stop at art.  On those visits he also gave me my first cup of tea.  Shared with me his love of blueberries.  Introduced me to crystallized ginger.

     And his impish humor shone through in all of our encounters. A ritual of my visit was always when, climbing up steep cramped stairs under the circus striped awning he had painted onto the ceiling, he would escort me and my suitcase to the guest bedroom.  Then he would throw open the door of the tiny adjacent bathroom and announce, "Don't mind her; she's just leaving."  Playing my part, I would peek inside and glimpse the pink backside of the Rubenesque nude, disappearing amidst clouds of steam behind a trompe l'oeil door, that my grandfather had rendered beautifully in classical style on the plaster wall. We continued this game through my very last visit with him.

  My father (Aldren Auld Watson, author of WATERFRONT NEW YORK: Images From the 1920s and 30s to be published by David R.Godine fall 2012) often told of how, when he was young, he and his father initiated a Saturday morning challenge for themselves:  together they would make biscuits for breakfast in as short a time as possible---and they would attempt each Saturday to beat their time from the week before. With my father's permission, I reproduce here his account, and his sketch, of one of those Saturday mornings:

Biscuits:  Rolled or Dropped

     Father pulls out his Hamilton railroad watch: "Five of seven Saturday morning; let's do it."

     I already did most of it---yesterday afternoon.  I had split a load of special kindling and thin firewood and filled the woodbox with it.  All bone-dry chestnut from those telephone poles.  Enough for two or three ordinary days.

     I nod, life off the left-hand stove lid, jab the cold ashes with the poker.  I wad up a couple sheets of newspaper, drop them into the firebox.  Then I build a criss-cross pile of kindling with skinny pieces of the chestnut about the thickness of your little finger, thicker ones on top.  Strike a wooden match, drop it into the pile, slide the stove lid back into place and open the damper to quick-start the draft.  Three minutes later shut the damper, add a handful of chestnut.  It snaps and crackles like firecrackers.

     Father is ahead of me, ahead of the fire, too.  All the makings are in the big brown crockery bowl and he's beating away with a wooden spoon.  I take a look and see that the oven needle is creeping up, 250 now.  Lift the front stove lid, shove in another bunch of chestnut sticks.  Fire is really popping.  The teakettle, always sitting on the back of the old Glenwood, starts to hum her tune.  Needle is almost touching 400 now, almost time.  Lift the lid, drop in six or seven sticks, clap the lid back in place.

     Father stands by, biscuit cutter in one hand, and in the other his cookie sheet with eighteen biscuit cutouts lined up on it.  I'm watching the oven door thermometer.  So is he.  The needle hits 450, and with the pot holder I grab the oven door, Father slides his cookie sheet onto the top rack, claps the door shut.

     "Seven fifteen," he says.  "Right on time."

     Every couple of minutes I lift the stove lid with my left hand, and with my right, quickly slide in a few thin sticks of chestnut, and quickly replace the lid.  I look at the oven door.  Just a whisker below 450.

     "Seven twenty-three," says Father.  The fire sounds like popcorn popping.  Father has to have a look.  He opens the oven door, glances inside, then pulls out the cookie sheet, looks at the Hamilton, and exclaims,

     "Thirty minutes, start to finish.  And golden brown, too!"

I don't know what recipe my grandfather used, so I include here my own favorite from my old JOY OF COOKING:

Buttermilk Biscuits

Sift before measuring: 1 3/4 c all-purpose flour (or 2 c cake flour), 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp soda.  Cut in: 5 Tbls butter.  Add: 2/3 c to 3/4 c buttermilk. Mix very lightly, turn out onto floured board, knead very slightly and gently---only 5 - 6 turns.  Pat dough to thickness of 1/4 inch. Cut out. Bake 10-12 minutes at 450 degrees.

As I make biscuits---or art---I like to remember my grandfather's beliefs:

You can always improve

Food and art are both important

Have fun

ARTISTS AND FOOD: MY FATHER

Aldren A. Watson is an author and artist.  Among other accomplishments, he has published  175 books.  In addition to illustrating many books for other authors, he collaborated with my mother, author Nancy Dingman Watson, as the illustrator for the list of distinguished children's books  they created together.  He also wrote and illustrated several children's books himself.  And he is the author and illustrator of a group of adult non-fiction titles that are still in print, many years after their publication.  Now 94 years old, he is looking forward to the publication of his 176th title.  David R. Godine, Publisher (http://www.godine.com/) will be bringing out WATERFRONT NEW YORK: Images From the 1920s and 30s in the fall of 2012.   

My father has always been adept in the kitchen.  He can produce a good meal as well as the next cook---and does.  During my growing-up years, he was always the breakfast chef.  He called our orders into the cupboard where the short-order chef reigned---"Harry!  Adam and Eve on a raft!"  He then whipped up the order at the stove---two poached eggs on toast.  And lastly, he  served it to the designated recipient with a flourish---"Your breakfast, Miss!"

But I remember him most often as an aide and abettor to cooks.  He designed and built the cabinetwork in our kitchen, with customized areas for cookbooks; spices; implements.  He installed the marble slab that my mother wanted for candy and bread making.  Was a tool  broken?  Or did you crave a yet-to-be-invented implement?  He would mend or create it. 

At this time of year I think especially of the unique cookie cutters that my father---always the inspired food collaborator---made for my mother's holiday baking.  My brother Peter and I helped to bake and ice the cookies.  (Or at least I thought we were helping.)

Peter and I watched as my father decorated wooden sugar buckets.  My mother then filled the buckets with the homemade cookies (though hopefuly not with the ones Peter and I had licked) and they were distributed as gifts.  It was a true creative collaboration between my mother and father, whether the medium was books or food.

These memories are inspiring me to do some holiday baking of my own.  I get out my recipe box, the one my father made for me years and years ago, and retrieve the recipe that we always baked for Christmas tree cookies.

RICH ROLL COOKIES (from an old edition of The Joy of Cooking)

Cream 1 cup butter, 2/3 cup sugar.  Beat in 1 egg.  Combine and add 2 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla.  Chill dough at least 3 to 4 hours before rolling.   Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll and cut out [this makes a tender dough---keep chilled, handle quickly].  Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until slightly colored.  Icing:  mix confectioner's sugar with milk and a little vanilla, then separate into small batches and color with food coloring. [Our modern flours are more refined than they were 50 or 100 years ago, when this recipe was first concocted. You may need to increase the amount of flour slightly to make a workable dough.]

Next I get out my own cookie cutters.  My father made a set for me over the years, just as he did for the rest of his children---a new cutter each Christmas.  I'll mix up my dough.  Roll it out.  Cut and bake the cookies. And ice them using my worn-out and thoroughly washed Winsor & Newton series 7 watercolor brushes.  The perfect melding of art and food.

ARTISTS AND FOOD: MY MOTHER

Artists and food always seem to go together.  An over-used phrase, perhaps, but a true one---and my family of artists is no exception.  My mother, Nancy Dingman Watson, was a writer.  She wrote a long string of distinguished children's books, illustrated by my father Aldren Auld Watson.  Later in her life she moved into adult poetry, and play-writing.  It is easy to find the roots of her love for words in her family heritage.  Professionally, the men were doctors.  The women were social workers, educators, diplomats.  But they were, as well, lovers of words.  Talking.  Reading.  Writing.  As a child, it seemed to me that those tall noisy relatives were always energetically discussing.  Always buried in books.  And writing---well, I have the example of the many literate and entertaining letters that my grandfather wrote to me.  Multiplying that by the number of grandchildren and other relatives with whom he corresponded---he must have been writing every day.

But my mother had another passion---cooking---that her family did not encourage.  She told stories of how she was not allowed, as a child, into the kitchen---that was the live-in cook's domain.  Stories of trying to concoct fudge on the tiny wood cookstove in her playhouse.  But always the yearning to cook.  When my parents married, bought a 100-acre farm in Vermont after WWII, and settled in, I imagine it might have been then that my mother was finally able to truly satisfy this desire.  She became a fabulous cook, with a reputation that must have pleased her enormously.

As we move into this holiday season, I have been thinking often about my mother's delight in cooking.  I remember her from my childhood, at this time of year, baking, baking, baking---scores of cookies, all kinds, all shapes and sizes.  My father decorated wooden sugar buckets for containers.  It was a collaborative activity, just as their books were.  The buckets were then filled with cookies and dispatched to appreciative friends and relatives, near and far.

After my mother died, this battered notebook was put into my hands.  As I held it, I was caught up in memories.  I had given my mother this notebook---new, blank, and pristine---17 years before.  I had written an inscription in the front of it. "To Mom, for Christmas 1984---Fill this full of good things!  Love, Wendy."  And I had fully expected that she would use it for a writing notebook.  After all, she, the writer, was the one who had given me the trick of keeping a notebook under my pillow for capturing those perfect midnight phrases.  She was the one who had given me a favorite writing exercise: "Write a piece that is 26 sentences long.  The first word of the first sentence begins with A.  The first word of the second sentence begins with B.  Etc.  Make one sentence 1 word long.  Make one sentence longer than 100 words."   

I opened the notebook.  On the flyleaf, under my inscription, my mother had written:  "Wendy--when I fill this full of good things I'll give it back!  The New Year, 1990.  Love, Mom." As I turned the pages, I realized---over a period of 11 years my mother HAD filled it with good things.  But the good things were not poems---they were recipes.  Her recipes.  On the very first page was her recipe for "Coffee Cake Wreath".  My mother was a purist---no making it ahead of time and putting it in the freezer.  No, during my childhood my mother got out of bed at 3 am on Christmas morning to start the coffee cake.  Tended it over the next few hours.   And took it out of the oven piping hot and delicious at 8 am, just in time for our Christmas breakfast.  


COFFEE CAKE WREATH
Dissolve 2 cakes yeast in 1 cup lukewarm milk or water (can substitute dry yeast).  Sift + stir in 1 cup all-purpose flour.  Cover this sponge and let rise in warm place till light, c. 1/2 hour.  Beat 1 cup soft butter.  Add gradually 1/2 cup sugar.  Blend until light + creamy.  Beat in, one at a time, 2 - 3 eggs.  Add 1 tsp salt, 2 tsps grated lemon rind.  Beat in the sponge. Sift and beat in gradually 3 1/2 cups flour.  Beat for 5 minutes.  Add 1/8 cup chopped citron, 1/4 cup raisins or chopped candied pineapple, 1 cup broken nut meats.  Cover bowl and let rise 2 hours or double.  Makes 2 wreaths 9" in diameter.  Roll 1/2 dough in 3 long strips.  Braid, shape; or just put dough in tube pans.  Let rise 1/2 hour, brush top with melted butter. Bake at 350.  [Note:  Our modern flours are more refined than they were 50 or 100 years ago, when this recipe was first concocted.  You may need to increase the amount of flour slightly to produce a manageable dough.]


I will be mixing up my own batch of "Coffee Cake Wreath" for Christmas---though I fear I am NOT a purist, Mother dear.  Instead, as is my wont, I will make it ahead and put it in the freezer...but I'll enjoy it as much as we all ever did, on December 25.