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.  

Pie, Take One... or Food Blog Meet Supper Club

Three years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to not just talk to my friends on Facebook and over text messages.  I decided to start a supper club that would meet (mostly) once a month for a themed dinner.  The idea is to sit around a table and look at people (not little blue screens you hold in your hand), talk, and share a good meal.

So, naturally, this is a perfect audience for the experiments of my cooking.  I choose the theme of each dinner… and it just so happened that I selected pie for the theme of this dinner - even before I started the blog.  But the theme is made for my grandmother’s recipe collection because it is full of pies.

I don’t know if it is cliché to say that pie makes me think of my grandmother.  It seems a very grandmother thing to make pies.  But let me tell you, my grandmother made them and made them well.  Apple pie is probably the one I remember most.  And lemon meringue.  And vaguely in the back of my memory, there was mincemeat.   Some of the more unusual varieties came out at Thanksgiving… but pie plates occupied that not so secret storage for sweets spot in the pantry closet as frequently as a tin of cookies.  

Nana Rose was also a pie maker.  In fact I think she was the one who initiated the practice of using torn up bed sheet strips to line under the edge of the crust as it baked in the oven.  Gram told me that Rose baked two pies every Sunday, one for the house.  And one for my great-grandfather Frank – my grandmother’s father.  

I am fascinated by the relationship between the widower and the divorcee.  My great-grandfather lost his wife in 1939, while my great-grandmother divorced her cad of a husband… leaving them both single parents who became so much a part of the lives of their grandchildren.  Rose was there during the week, but Frank would take the whole brood out for long walks on Sundays (exhausting them plenty for Sunday night).  And in return, he would get one of Rose’s pies.

 Grampy Frank with his daughter and six of his grandchildren.

I decided to make Gram’s pumpkin pecan pie.  Knowing it was a one-shelled recipe, I followed her instructions for two so I could use the second to bake a brie for the pre-dinner snack.  Normally I use a pre-packaged phyllo dough for that recipe.  But pie crust works just as well.

Now, full disclosure, pie crust is not my specialty.  I can make pizza dough in my sleep.  I can create a lasagna from random ingredients in my fridge or pasta sauce out of beets.  Anything with cheese… well, okay, I have to give cheese most of the credit.  But pie crust… well… pie crust is an art I have yet to master.

Remember that paste story I mentioned at the beginning of this blog?  Well, it turns out that is an actual step… and maybe that’s where my pie making skills went south.  Apparently I got stuck on that step and never made it to the dough part.   I should have taken a picture of the paste – but, well, unfortunately I have serious focus issues when I cook and prep my house for a dinner party… so for that part you just have to use your imagination.

Pie Crust Recipe (forms two shells)
Ingredients:
2 c. flour
1tsp. salt
2/3 c. Crisco (I admit I am not a purist here.  I get my pretentious organic vegetable shortening from Wegmans)
1/3 c. water

Directions:
1. Sift flour and salt into a bowl
2.  In separate bowl, take out 1/3 cup flour and blend with water to make a paste
3. Cut the Crisco into the remainder of the flour until it is in pieces, the size of peas.
4. Stir the flour paste into dry ingredients to make a dough that will hold together.
5. Form into a bowl
6. Roll to desired size

So like I said, I used one to make the brie, baked with caramelized onions and an apple.  That was the messiest and not one connected piece… so I didn’t photograph it until the plate was nearly demolished.

The second shell I used to make a pumpkin pecan pie.

The shell (with a little bit of the batter)  At least it was one piece.

Pumpkin Pecan Pie (made better as 9 in pie, rather than 8in) – did I read this instruction?  No.

Beat 2 large eggs in a bowl.  Stir in 1 can 1lb pumpkin, ½ c. brown sugar, ¼ c. sugar, ½ tsp. each salt, ginger, 1 tsp. cinnamon, ¼ tsp. ground cloves.  Whisk in 1 ½ light cream.  Pour into unbaked pie crust.  Bake 400° 45-55 minutes until crust is brown, filling set.  Cool pie.  In small pan melt 3 Tbsp butter, stir in 2/3 c. brown sugar, 24 pecan halves of 2/3 c. coarsely chopped pecans.  Put pecans on top of pie.  Broil 2-3 minutes until brown.  Serves 8-10.  Serve warm.

Cooking with pumpkin always makes me happy.  Adding fragrant spices to it, so much the better.

In spite of my lackluster product, I must say I would rather a sloppy homemade crust than one from the store.  It’s like pizza dough – basic (cheap) ingredients… and the only way to confront this demon of imperfection is to just keep on trying!

That said, I can identify two imperfect things from this day in the kitchen i.e. the way I did not follow directions.

1. I broiled my pie while trying to track down extra pie servers.  So… those 3 minutes went a little long… and the pecans were more black than golden.  But that didn’t stop us from eating!

2. I did not heed the advice about the pie plate size – so I had too much filling.  What does one do with batter of eggs, spices, and cream?  Make French toast of course!