Soul House Cookies

It’s been a while since I’ve set words down to publish on this blog.  In spite of my lack of narration, I have continued with my recipes.  Hosting a regular dinner party does afford one the discipline to look into cookbooks… at least monthly.  I even started an entry that I left in draft form some place on this computer… but I’m afraid I let the mental occupation of my past few months distract me from posting.

Part of that was work.  So I guess I can’t feel too guilty for giving attention to what pays for the ingredients of my kitchen.  The second – and more recent – part of my distraction was the fact I agreed to step into a play halfway through the rehearsal process and perform two weekends of it.

One major reason I agreed (in spite of my better judgment to avoid doing plays during Banned in Boston season) was because of the director.  The last play in which I was involved was his production of Crimes of the Heart.  It closed on September 16^th.  I remember visiting my grandmother the following Sunday.  We talked about the play because she had read the review in the Worcester Telegram.  That was the last conversation I shared with her.

I thought of that as I drove home the nights I didn’t have rehearsal and would pass her house.  I knew the tv room light wouldn’t be on, that she wasn’t reading the review of this play.  I knew the house was lit for different, exciting reasons… but I couldn’t help but sigh and acknowledge this was the first time I have been in a play and she didn’t know.

She didn’t come to all my plays.  And that’s probably a good thing.  There have been times in my life when I’ve been involved in shows right on top of the next… and that’s not reasonable for anyone, never mind my 70,80, 90 year old grandmother.  But she did come to a lot of them.  Even when they were in the basement of Hovey and required descending those stairs and going backstage to get to the bathrooms.  Even when it was a bleak Irish tragedy, with no real redemption when the stage goes black.  She wouldn’t hesitate to express an opinion of the story… or the appreciation of the work.

She always liked to tell me how George Edward liked theater.  Because in a family of sports fans, I was noticeably the artistic one.  But then another cousin or two would do a show… and she would tell me.  Because theater was my thing.  So I would appreciate it.  She also told me about a professor at Clark who used to put on plays.  She would go to those plays with her father.  Or maybe it was her brother… but she always liked those plays.  He did a lot of Shakespeare, so I would probably like them.  That Clark professor, it turns out, went up to Barre in the 1950’s and revived the Barre Players.  The theater where I cut my teeth on directing and got to act in some of my favorite roles.  Where my grandmother sat in the audience several times.

I missed those conversations this month.  Even though the story of the Clark professor was a familiar tale. It was a comfortable routine.  A sort of warm blanket to fall into when I felt the letdown of a show’s closing.  I knew it wouldn’t be there at the end of last weekend, but I decided some comfort was necessary.  So I made cookies.

Actually, this used to be one of the things I did at Hovey.  Not for every show… but certainly the ones that I really enjoyed being part of.  I like to bake and a cast full of actors in need of a quick sugar fix was always the perfect opportunity to share a batch of cookies and not be left with the lot for myself.  So that’s what I made before our last Saturday show.  It proved most handy after the show… as our performance was next door to a bar… and these cookies were necessary carbohydrates.

Her recipe is the one you can find on the back of Nestle’s chocolate chips.  But… somehow… it tastes better because it is in her handwriting.

I actually have six or seven left that I put in the freezer.  For a rainy day.  Or a day I just want to think about sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, one of these chocolate chip cookies from the tin in the pantry closet, talking to my grandmother about theater.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies or How I Discovered My Wings

So Massachusetts was prescribed a snow day today.  I thought it best to use the afternoon to do some baking, as I have promised my friend Cheryl some goodies for her bookdrive on Sunday.  I thumbed through recipes this morning, wanting to match up the required ingredients with the contents of my cupboards.  Not to mention that paranoia about offering nuts in a public setting.  So gauntlet set upon the ground.

I decided to make the chocolate mint brownies again.  Brownies and mint frosting with a chocolate shell never go wrong.  I bought some chocolate chips in my hasty pre-blizzard grocery store run, so I figured I would justify that weather induced shopping spree.  Of course, her recipe collection has several varieties of chocolate chip cookies and bars and assorted desserts.  I picked up one, assessed my butter supply, and then decided on the oatmeal combination.  Because a. it requires shortening and b. it requires oatmeal.

I’ve recently started ordering from my aunt’s co-op.  This is my most recent supply of oatmeal.

Chocolate Chips + Oatmeal Surplus =

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

½ c. shortening
½ c. brown sugar
½ c. granulated sugar
1 beaten egg
1 Tbsp water
½ tsp. vanilla
¾ c. sifted flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ c. oatmeal uncooked.
1 ½ c. chocolate chips
Scribbled in the middle is a note to add wheat germ. I didn’t.  You can, apparently.

Cream shortening + sugar
Stir in egg, water, vanilla + sifted flour + dry ingredients.  Add choc chips.
Drop by teaspoonful  on greased cookie sheet.  Bake 350° 10-15 minutes.  Switch during baking from bottom to top shelf to prevent scorching.

This is one of the first times in a while I’ve baked cookies without using a stone.  So I have to admit my nuance was a little off.  I guess they did in fact scorch a little…. But mostly because there are so many chocolate chips they tend to cook a little fast.  That said, the one that broke in my attempt to loosen it from the cookie sheet tastes pretty swell.

Obviously, I embrace any opportunity to share Gram’s sweet recipes.  It saves me from the temptation of eating a whole batch.  It allows me to share the deliciousness I associate with childhood bliss.  But, there is definitely something very appropriate about these recipes providing refreshment for a book event.

My dad is quite a reader.  I’d say the only thing comparable to his record collection is his collection of books.  A literary gluttony I have inherited.  But as much as baking and gardens make me think of my grandmother, so do books.

When I didn’t have any companions to play with in the attic, I would try to set up a solitary game of house with the tea set… but I usually used up my storyline pretty quickly.  Or I would simply get distracted when I found myself seated in front of the large bookcase between the eaves and the window.  

The library was one of my favorite places to visit as a kid.  But this bookshelf – a mere four or five packed shelves – was enough of a temptation to make me want to push outside of my supposed reading level.  I remember seeing my first copy of a Little House book on those shelves, making me realize there was more to Laura Ingalls Wilder than Melissa Gilbert.  There were Nancy Drew mysteries.  Fairy tales.  Dickens.  A weathered copy of Sybil.  And a paperback of Catcher in the Rye that I still have on a shelf somewhere…

Being able to take home one of those books was being able to take home a piece of treasure from that magical attic.  It was also a bit of victory knowing I was reading something that my grandmother might well have read herself.  

And that pendulum swung back again.  My most favorite gift to wrap up for her on Christmas was usually a book.  Whether it was about local history, essays, something about gardens, or a piece of well written fiction, it was a delight to share it with one of my most favorite readers.

Those books were scattered throughout the house.  Eventually that shelf in the attic stopped collecting volumes… or enough borrowers retained the copies for their own libraries.  But as I started collecting images of the house before it disassembled, there were books in nearly every room.  Her bedroom, the back two bedrooms, the living room, the dining room had a few volumes tucked into the music stand and desk, the kitchen had books carefully displayed on a shelf above the door, the cellar, and the tv room – where she sat for much of her last year – had several stacks of volumes… including the one I wrote.

A picture of her paternal grandmother, Mary McCourt, reading

In the last few weeks, the pieces of that house were collected into rooms so different members of the family could come and take something for our own homes.  It really is not surprising that a whole room was devoted to books.  Children’s books.  Novels.  Garden books.  Cookbooks.  Books given to her.  Books she gave to us.

I took home a few volumes to add to my shelves.  But really, at the end of the day, I don’t think it’s merely those bound copies or the ones I took from the attic in my younger days that are most significant.  It is the fact that she shared that passion for reading.  Even in her last days, we would talk about books and writers and things she found interesting because she read them.  And I suspect that is a lot of the reason her mind was sharp to the very end.  

So really, if you think about it, she didn’t just give me the recipes to inspire this blog.  She gave me the love of words and vocabulary and a good story.  Or maybe this quote she kept taped to a shelf in the cellar describes it best.

She gave me books.  She gave me wings.

To Life, To Life with Chocolate Chips

The week before I went to UMASS Memorial to have that surreal, I will never forget farewell, I got a call on my cell phone while I was at work.  Now if you don’t know me very well, you might not know how much I despise my cell phone.  How much I try to avoid using it at unnecessary moments, like work.  My friends still do call and text me… but are pretty sensitive to the fact that I work.  And of course I saw this call come up as I was wrangling with some annoying customer service person on the phone for work.  Some seeming disaster that actually eludes me now.  I just know my head clouded as I saw a friend’s name show on the caller ID and had to let it go to voicemail while I dealt with that other annoying matter.  But I made the callback… already with the sick feeling in my stomach of the news it was going to reveal.

It was just about a year ago exactly that my friend Lisa was given the grim diagnosis that her cancer had come back with a vengeance.  I met Lisa through theater – kind of appropriately considering the kinship and mutual love of social justice, feminism, politics, and art - during a production of the Vagina Monologues.  I can’t even remember which monologue was hers.  Maybe she was just part of the ongoing ‘chorus.’  But she wore a pink feather boa.  It’s one of the most vivid details about that show in my memory.

Lisa had a family and a full time job as a social worker.  She lived in Sturbridge.  I still lived out the Boston way.  But there was great opportunity for political empathies on Facebook… and the occasional run-in at a theater production.  Then somewhere in the Facebook postings and invitations, she found my supper club and wanted in.  Because I was having a pumpkin themed dinner.  Unfortunately her best intentions did not get her to that dinner, but she saved the bottle of pumpkin wine until she was able to come to a supper early last November before heading over to work.  

I think it is a curious thing – coincidence – timing –whatever that Lisa and my grandmother left this life within a week of one another.  They were both such dynamic women.  Full of love, love, love.  For their children.  For their spouses.  For their friends.  They both were genuinely interested in people… and in the world.  Smart, sassy women without whom this world feels a little empty.

Tonight the Sturbridge theater community is paying tribute to Lisa.  I am happily attending… but also happily contributing to the night’s refreshments.  When the call was put out to offer up baked goods, it seemed a perfect opportunity to bring together my love of these women.  

In honor of her love of pumpkin, I opted to make my own recipe of pumpkin chocolate chip bars.  I didn’t even think about this blog much as I got up first thing this morning and made a batch… so no pictures, I’m afraid.  BUT in spite of the fact this is not a Mary Brennan recipe, I will post it here.  I know these bars have visited her kitchen once or twice… and they are pretty good.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

Ingredients:
2 ½ c. flour
1tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. cinnamon
¾ tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 c. butter, melted
1 c. white sugar
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. semisweet chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375°.  Grease 13 x 9 pan (I use my favorite Pampered Chef stoneware brownie pan)
2. Stir together first six ingredients.
3. Blend butter and sugar until smooth.  Add pumpkin.  Add eggs, one at a time.  Gradually blend in dry ingredients.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan.
4. Bake 35-45 minutes.  Best served warm (with a cup of coffee).

(I did not take pictures of the making of or finished product before packaging them into pieces for sale tonight.  BUT I did think to take a snapshot of the crumbs I sampled with my morning coffee)

The second recipe for today’s blog is what I made for the reception after my grandmother’s wake.  It’s the first recipe I made from this recipe box.  I chose it, mostly, because it can be made without nuts.  In fact, that’s how I’ve made it – mostly because I haven’t had any in my kitchen.  But the mandate for tonight is no nuts.  It’s something I remember from that pantry closet – maybe even more vividly than peanut butter bars.  And while the recipe is Nestle, to me it is my grandmother because she was the supplier.

Original Toll House Pan Cooky (Gram’s spelling – she also gave credit where credit is due by inserting Nestlés underneath)
1 c. pls 2 Tbsp unsifted flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ c. butter softened
6 Tbsp. sugar *
6 Tbsp. brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 c. choc chips
½ c. nut meats  (I found this descriptive term amusing considering Gram and my mutual disdain for squirrels)

Preheat oven to 375°.  In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.  In large bowl, combine butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla.  Beat until creamy.  Beat in egg.  Gradually add flour mixture.  Mix well.  Stir in chips and nuts.  Spread into greased 9 in square pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes.  For crisper cookie, spread dough in 13x9 pan.  Bake at 350° 12-15 minutes.

*In case you’re wondering, there are 16 Tbsp. in a cup.  I doubled this recipe – so 12 Tbsp = ¾ of a cup.

(Basically in the end, you end up with a bowl full of cookie dough.  And you could make cookies, I suppose.  But they are easier to package as bars... and I actually like them better.)

As I went to pull off the pictures from my camera for this post, I found I still had one of Lisa and me at brunch raising our mimosas and smiling.  A woman with so much spirit and love.  She lived the mantra Carpe Diem, even through this last bittersweet year.  I am grateful for the visits I had with her in 2012.  And, this may be a tangential detail to this post… but I broke down and bought a device that will enable me to take pictures – mostly for this blog… but because of this blog, I seek to capture the stories of my day to day.  I had the option to inscribe it on the back.  I chose Carpe Diem.