Requiescat in Pace - Alexander McQueen

Fellow Pisces and all around bad boy, Alexander McQueen died. It is too, dreary for such sad news. Even during the darkest days, McQueen could bring a smile.

ICE, ICE Baby

I know the weather seems to be what everyone is blogging about. But seriously, I am trapped. I have no internet at the house, so I trekked out to my office where there is no heat. So, I'm going home. I'll blog again in the Spring...

Those Mitford Girls, Again

Desmond Guinness' hallway to the drawing room featuring the William Acton portrait of his mother, Diana

Has the snow stranded everyone? I have been bereft without my blogs.

As for "Pin The Name On The Mitfords" little augury has posted what she believes to be the answers to the Mitford Who's Who?

Here is her list:

1 - Deborah
2 -Jessica
3- Unity
4-Pamela
5-Nancy
6- Diana

She is sure of 5 and 6. I am sure of 2. Any other ideas? Check this Lucindaville post to see the originals.

Those Mitford Girls & William Acton

William Acton, the artist and brother of the famous aesthete, Harold Acton was a close friend of Diana Mitford. He sketched a lovely portrait of her. Her mother saw it and was so smitten, she commissioned Acton to draw the five remaining "Mitford Girls." I have never seen these drawing identified, so I am not real sure which is which. I believe, because of the difference in shading, the first is Diana. Acton did a famous painting of Diana and this looks like the sketch of that painting. Jessica is next and quite discernible. After that I am frankly lost.

Let's play "Pin The Name On The Mitfords." Please join in and let us know if you have ideas.


In 1985, only four of the "Mitford Girls" remained. Three of the sisters posed for portraits.

Pamela

Diana

Deborah

Deep Fried Kudzu & Everyday Cornbread

One of my favorite blogs is Ginger's Deep Fried Kudzu. 

Ginger is a 7th-generation Alabamian and I am convinced she knows more about Alabama than anyone.

Aside from knowing about art and history and architecture and culture she also knows quite a bit about food.   So it was only natural that Ginger took one of Lucinda's Wood Cake Boxes into her kitchen to give it a try.  After all, my wood cake boxes started out in an Alabama kitchen.

She adapted a Bon Appetit recipe and the rest, as they say, is history.

Wish I was there...


Also, from Alabama, my BFF Beverly has started a blog: Everyday Cornbread.   So far she has only one post, but every blogger starts somewhere.  The blog is about living on the lower forty, or in her case the lower 20.  As you may remember, Beverly inspired our series Cocktails At The Burnpit.  In honor of her new blog, we are gathering up the chicken feed sacks, grabbing a full-bodied burgundy and heading to the burnpit.

Picasso Damaged

In life we all stumble now and then.

For those of you who didn't hear, on 22 January a woman taking an adult education class at the Metropolitan Museum accidentally fell into “The Actor.” Painted during Picasso's Rose Period, the 4 feet by 6 foot canvas was completed when he was only 23. There is now, according to the New York Times, "an irregular, six-inch tear running vertically along the lower right-hand corner."

I know how she feels.

Several years ago I was in Paris during la grève. Who knows they are always grève -ing in Paris. Still, it was difficult to get around the city and many things were closed. One afternoon, we found the Musée National Picasso was open and off we went. Now the Musée National Picasso is not known for its great collection. There are many inferior works housed there, but it does house the wonderful painting, "Portrait of Marie-Thérèse.


"Marie-Thérèse" was tucked in a darkened alcove. Upon exiting said alcove, my shin came into contact with the brass bar rail intended to keep the viewers at bay. The huge brass ball caused me to stagger and in doing so I knocked a painting off the wall. This caused alarms to scream and Japanese tourist to stop dead in their tracks.

As I saw the painting move (and to this day I couldn't tell you which painting, but even a crappy Picasso would exceed my budget) I knew I did not have enough traveler's checks to pay for damages if I broke it, so I managed to hold onto the frame and keep the painting from falling as I tried to regain my footing. So there I was, standing in Musée National Picasso holding a Picasso as the alarms blared. I didn't want to move because I didn't want to get shot.

The alarms rang and rang and no one came. Remember la grève. So I thought, perhaps I should just re-hang the painting. I was in the process of hanging it when two guards strolled around the corner. One took the painting and hung it while the other worried about my leg. Frankly, fixing my leg would be infinitely cheaper than fixing a Picasso.

I recovered. The painting was undamaged. And the Japanese tourists had a great story to tell.

My heart goes out to woman at the Metropolitan Museum.

Happy Birthday -- Virginia Woolf

Today is Virginia Woolf's Birthday. In honor of that occasion Paste Magazine's List of the Day features 10 songs in celebration of the event. A soundtrack for her life.


Here's their list:

1. “Virginia Woolf” by the Indigo Girls
2. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” by Jimmy Smith
3. “Paris” by Regina Spektor
4. “To the Lighthouse” by Patrick Wolf
5. “Rapture” by Laura Veirs
6. “Virginia” by Marissa Nadler
7. “Shakespeare’s Sister” by The Smiths
8. “It’s Magnetic” by Assembly Now
9. “Waves” by Princeton
10. “The Waydown” by Modest Mouse

Requiescat in Pace -- Jean Simmons

Jean Simmons died yesterday. One film critic said of her:

"Jean Simmons' jaw-dropping beauty often obscured a formidable acting talent."

For 60 years she worked as an actress, appearing in over 50 films and scores of television productions. My favorite was Elmer Gantry.

Little augury has been featuring a number of wonderful posts on great beauties. She asked me to participate, and I tended to go with writers as actresses often take top billing. If the assignment had been to pick 10 actresses, Jean Simmons would have been close to the top.

Eugene Walter

Eugene Walter picnicing outside Rome

Sooner or later Southerners all come home,
not to die, but to eat gumbo.

Eugene Walter

I have always been fascinated by strangers. One never knows, sitting in a restaurant or flying on a plane or simple walking down a street, who is there with you. The person beside you on a plane may well be a famous novelist or chef. The woman in the red dress at the restaurant might be an artist whose painting sells for a million dollars and the waiter may win an academy award in five years. Those goofy, unknown faces we pass each day, may be someone we really want to meet and talk to and know. Eugene Walter was an expert at noticing those people and seeking them out.

He followed Greta Garbo down New York streets, but never spoke to her. After a busy day of buying castanets, he found himself alone on a bus with Edith Sitwell, and he would dress up in his finest clothes and slip into the theater at intermission to see Martha Graham.

Eugene Walter "dancing" with some staff from the Paris Review

When I was in Alabama dying to get out, Eugene Walter had returned for gumbo. We were a short drive from each other, but we never met. That is a tragedy in my life. A failure on my part. Though we share many things, in the end Eugene Walter, triple Sagittarius could have never overlooked the fact that I was a Pisces and he always said, “Sagittarians do not get along with Pisces.”

After returning to Mobile he told Katherine Clark, “I’m fat, I’m bankrupt and I’ve got fleas.” None of that stopped Clark from assembling an oral history, Milking the Moon.

You may have never heard of Eugene Walter, but he knew everybody and never met a person he didn’t have a good story about. Now the question remains, are the stories true. Well some are true and some are real, some are real and some are true, but not always at the same time.

Here are some highlights: Eugene Walter served as a cryptographer in World War II, founded a chamber orchestra, was a founding contributor to the Paris Review, won the Lippincott prize for his novel, The Untidy Pilgrim, won and O’Henry, won a Sewanee-Rockefeller fellowship for his poetry, composed music, sang opera, acted in over 100 films, including Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Lina Wertmüller’s Ballad of Belle Starr, and was a cookbook author including Southern Style a volume in the Time-Life American Cooking series.

As the Mother Superior in Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits

Eugene Walter could have written a multi-volumed biography, but he was far too involved living his life than writing about it. He once said after trying to remember a particularly juicy story told to him by Alice B. Toklas,

"I should have been Boswelling all these years…but I wasn’t. I was Eugene-ing, which is different.”

Like a true Southerner, there was always food and drink involved in his exploits. At a time when he was penniless he fed fellow novelist Patti Hill a meal she always remembered.

"…she had three onions, and I had a bottle of wine and some crackers. So I put some olive oil in a frying pan, and I did onions three ways. I did all this elaborate froufrou about giving it French names and pretending we were doing this very elaborate French meal. But it was onions thrown into boiling water just long enough to be crunchy and flavored with cloves; and then onions boiled until they were mush, flavored with something else; and then onions fried with a little sherry poured into them. Then crackers and I think I had some peppermints. We were both absolutely penniless; we just had arrived at nothing. So I did this pretend snob French dinner of onions. Lord, Lord. It just goes to show it’s not money that makes a party; it’s imagination."

Everyone who knew remembered his parties. Feeling that T. S. Eliot was a bit uptight and would probably be more fun if he could, “get enough Jim Beam into him,” Walter made his 23rd Artillery punch for a party thrown for Eliot by an Italian princess.

“We brought up from the cellar of Palazzo Caetani a huge, magnificent old punch bowl that had not been used since around World War I. And I put a block of ice in it. And I made a little hole in the block of ice. And I put some sliced oranges and lemons in the hole. And then I poured two bottles of cognac over that. And then I poured two bottles of good white rum over that. And then I poured two bottles of very good English gin over that. And then I just filled up the rest of the bowl with cold champagne. It tastes like the most delicious orange punch. You would never guess there is one drop of anything alcoholic in it.”

Before the night was over, T. S. Eliot was teaching the party cheer leading chants from Holy Cross.



The stories are endless. Milking the Moon is a joy to read. Eugene Walter is truly one of a kind. But what kind? he might ask. Nearing the end of his life he talked about fate and his life he called “free-form.”

"I live three days in one day without haste, without hurry. I stop when I’m tired. I have a glass of wine when I feel faint. I have no schedule, although I work every day… You think you can plan a life? I’ve always thought you must improvise daily. Today may bring money in the mail. Today may bring a hurricane. You have to be ready for either one. In either case, give a party.”

Word to live by.

Find some of Eugene Walter's recipes at Cookbook Of The Day.

Chuck Williams & the Brioche Molds

I love Chuck Williams.

The guy is in his nineties and still goes to work everyday.

I hate Chuck Williams.

He goes to work every day and looks for new things for me to buy.


It’s not hard. I have never been in a Williams-Sonoma that I wasn’t prepared to move into. Some thick drapes to keep those pesky shoppers from looking in and I am good to go. Getting my Williams-Sonoma catalogue makes for a good mail day.

Chuck Williams has a great knack for finding items you will never need in a million years and explaining to you why you need them. (Maybe Chuck Williams should have been in charge of the health care bill…I digress…) I admit I have fallen into this category more than once.

Many years ago, I was captivated by exquisite little brioches featured in the catalogue. They were not simply brioche, which I had never been captivated by; these were MINI brioche, mini brioche studded with CHOCOLATE. I wanted them. I needed them. Beside their stunning little picture was the recipe for making them. Not just any recipe but a recipe by Hubert Keller. By now I was obsessed with these chocolate-studded-Hubert Keller- mini-brioche.

I had everything I needed to make little orbs of chocolate pastryness sans one. I did not own a silicon mini brioche baking mold. How could this be? How could I not own a mini silicone brioche baking mold? Was I insane? Everyone needs a mini silicone brioche baking mold. Chuck Williams knew this. Hubert Keller knew this. And yet somehow, it had escaped me. I had to get one. I had to have a mini silicone brioche baking mold with its nine little cups for baking my brioche.

Then I re-read Hubert Keller’s recipe. The recipe made 18 mini chocolate brioches. But the pan only held 9! What was I to do? Chuck Williams knew. He knew that I didn’t need ONE mini silicone brioche baking molds I needed TWO. And two I have.



I have used them on many occasions to bake Hubert Keller’s Chocolate Brioches. I have never used them for anything else, though I am interested in receiving ideas. Here is Keller's recipe.

Not that I don’t trust Hubert Keller, but I find there are a few thing I would tweak in his recipe. My notes are in parentheses.

Chocolate Brioches

For the sponge:

2 tsp. active dry yeast (one package in those three-sectioned yeast packets is a bit over 2 tsp. so I just use the package)
3 Tbs. lukewarm water
3 Tbs. all-purpose flour

For the dough:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
3 Tbs. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/3 cup warm milk
4 Tbs. (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into cubes, at room temperature
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten with 1 tsp. water

To make the sponge, in a bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water. Stir in the flour, cover with plastic wrap (a paper towel or cloth works just fine) and set in a warm place until foamy, about 10 minutes. (If you make the sponge, then begin the dough, the sponge will be ready when you need it without any timing.)


To make the dough, in the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the 1 3/4 cups flour, the sugar and salt and whisk by hand until well blender, about 1 minute. Transfer the bowl to the mixer and attach the dough hook. With the mixer on low speed, add the egg and milk. Increase the speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes. (It really only needs about 3 minutes. The dough will have a shredded look and not be a cohesive ball.)

Add the butter and knead for 5 minutes. (Again, about 3 minutes will do. This time the dough will come together in a big ball.)

Stop the mixer and add the sponge. Continue kneading on medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic, 7 to 10 minutes, adding more flour as needed. (I find 7 minutes is plenty and no additional flour is needed.)


Cover the bowl with a towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Butter the two 9-well silicone brioche baking molds and place on baking sheets. (Both molds will fit on one large baking sheet.)

Punch down the dough, transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead in the chocolate chips. Form the dough into 18 balls and place in the prepared wells. Let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes. Brush the tops of the brioches with the egg yolk mixture. Bake until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.

Immediately invert the molds onto wire rack and remove the brioches, using a toothpick to gently loosen them, if needed. Let cool completely before serving.

What? You don’t own a pair of mini silicone brioche baking molds. You amateur! Not a problem, just give Chuck Williams a call.