Sour Cherry Preserves

This summer I got a new cherry pitter. Some girls like shoes, I like kitchen gadgets.



Having a new cherry pitter meant procuring cherries to pit with it. So I got 8 cups of sour cherries and pitted them. I like my preserves and jams to a bit on the loose side, so I try not to use pectin.


Sour Cherry Preserves

8 cups pitted sour cherries
1/2 cup lemon juice
6 cups sugar


Put the cherries, juice and sugar into a nonreactive canning pan. Cook slowly until the sugar has dissolved. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil and cook until the temperature on a candy thermometer reads 230 F. Fill sterilized jars to with 1/8 inch of the top. Screw on the sterilized jar top and ring and hand tighten. Place in a canning pot of boiling water an inch over the top of the jars. Process for 10 minutes. Remove and cool.


Now make some biscuits and sit out on the porch and enjoy.

Stettheimer Dollhouse

Portrait of My Sister, Carrie W. Stettheimer, 1923 by Florine Stettheimer

The other evening I was sitting at my desk with he television on in the background when Dr. Who came on. I know very little of Dr. Who. Suffice to say, I am aware that the show has a huge following and even the people who follow it with great vigor, the so called Whovians, sometimes find themselves lost in Who-ville. I began to pay attention when I saw that the time travelers were abducted by a child and sent to live in a dollhouse with some really creepy dolls.




This made me think -- If I were to get trapped in a doll house by some weirdly alien child, which dollhouse would I want to get trapped in. Clearly the question was a no-brainer. Carrie Stettheimer's Dollhouse, of course.




The Stettheimer Sisters were an interesting bunch. (As an only child, I never could grasp the concept of siblings, and while I can think of nothing worse than "sisters", I do admit an unnatural fascination with them.)

In the Stettheimer household, there were three sisters of note.

Florine, Carrie, and Ettie Stettheimer

Florine was a painter who refused to sell or show her work.

Carrie managed the household and spent somewhere between 18 and 25 years building a dollhouse.

Ettie was writer of overwrought, slightly feminist, lovelorn novels.


Carrie Stettheimer filled the dollhouse with recreations of the rooms in the Stettheimer house. The sisters used their house as a salon and the numerous painters and artist who visited, joined in Carrie dollhouse fantasy by painting tiny replicas of some their most important works. Even Marcel Duchamp made Carrie a tiny Nude Descending a Staircase.

The Stettheimer dollhouse is roughly 28 inches tall, 50 inches long, and 35 inches wide and it resides at the Museum of the City of New York.


So if, perchance, you run into Dr. Who and you have to be sucked into a dollhouse, this is the one. I could definitely live there, if the sisters moved out.

Grind Your Own

My friend, Ann, decided to enrich the cooking environment of Lucindaville with a grain grinder for Christmas, as we always wanted to make our own grits. However, grain grinders are ghastly expensive, so I promised to keep a lookout for scratch-and-dent model. Of course I found one and Ann came through, though it was a bit before the Christmas deadline. We couldn't resist giving it a spin.

First we ground some blue corn. Since this was our first experiment, our grits came out more of a cornmeal. Grits -- cornmeal who cares, they were our cornmeal. So we took the cornmeal and made cornbread. We made the cornbread with the cornmeal and Doe Run eggs. Just a reminder, the eggs at Doe Run Farm have the most vibrant orange yolks, so the eggs acted, not only as a binder, but as a food coloring. So the blue cornmeal and orange yolks made for a strangely colored cornbread.


But still, beyond yummy. By Christmas, we should have the kinks worked out.

Cold-Green House

We still need a nice coat of white paint.

We have been working on taking an old chicken house and turning it into a greenhouse type of structure for potting plants and perhaps a bit of coldhouse growing. Last week we completed some glass roof panels.

Teddy takes a first look.

A fly on the wall or ceiling.

Cloudy daylight.


A bit more sun.

Teddy does the contractor's walk through.

He wanted a wooden panel here.

His demands were unresolved.

In the end, the project received the "Teddy" seal of approval.

Famous Food Friday -- Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier Williams by Alfred Eisenstaedt

Let's just get this right of the way -- I am not fond of cookbooks that take a famous person of event and then just throws together recipes claiming to be a cookbook. So I was quite skeptical about Dinner With Tennessee Williams. Drinks with Tennessee Williams might have been another story...



Still, if you were going to do a Tennessee Williams cookbook, this one was done in the right way. First, there was rhyme to their reason. Every year New Orleans has a Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. This cookbook grew out of a love of Tennessee William's New Orleans. Chef Greg Picolo had cooked for the Literary Festival on occasion. Troy Gilbert had written a cookbook or two. Throw in Dr. Kenneth Holditch, a noted Williams scholar, and you have a fine cookbook, one even Tennessee Williams would have been proud of.

I lived in New Orleans for a year. I gained forty pounds! Seriously, I GAINED forty pounds. Even the crappiest food in New Orleans is about ten times better than the BEST food in most places. Southerners love to sit around an talk and eat. And talk and eat and tell you about what they ate and how their grandma cooked it and how that differed from the way Mama cooked it and how they cook it and what restaurant has a good approximation. New Orleans is one of those cities where people can talk poetically and passionately about food and spend their entire life having never set foot in a kitchen!

Gilbert and Picolo do a great job of translating Dr. Holditch's scholarship about the food in the plays of Tennessee Williams into actual food on a plate. Here is a pork chop fit to serve the overbearing and "big" Big Daddy from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Note they are not just pork chops but double-cut pork chops cooked in Coca-cola, bourbon and molasses the real "holy trinity" of Southern cooking.

Big Daddy's Braised Double-Cut Pork Chops With Coca-Cola, Bourbon, Molasses, and Granny Smith Apples

6 double-cut pork chops
Salt and pepper
2 cups flour, seasoned
1/2 cup olive oil
1 large onion, sliced
2 cups bourbon
4 cups Coca-Cola
2 cups apple juice
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons lite soy sauce
2 tablespoons Steen's Molasses
2 teaspoons Tabasco or Crystal Hot Sauce
2 cups demi-glace
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 cup beef stock, if needed
5 Granny Smith apples, cored, quartered

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Season chops with salt and pepper and then dust in seasoned flour. Sear chops in hot oil in an ovenproof pan until light brown, about 2 minutes on each side and remove to a plate. Carefully pour off excess oil, then add onion and saute 2 minutes. Return chops to pan and deglaze with the bourbon, allowing the pot liquor to reduce by two-thirds.

Add Coca-Cola, apple juice, garlic, soy sauce, molasses, Tabasco, demi-glace, thyme, rosemary, and salt and pepper. While cooking, take a brush and baste the chops every 5 minutes or so. Braise in an oven, uncovered, at 450 degrees F for 8 minutes. If needed, add stock or water if the pot-liquor reduces too quickly. Reduce heat and cook at 350 - 400 degrees F for 20 minutes; turn the chops. Cook for an additional 20 minutes then turn again. Add apples and cook an additional 20--40 minutes, until the meat is almost falling off the bone. Serve .

Another reason to feature this cookbook is to take a look back at some of the fine actresses that have given life to the complex women of Tennessee Williams' imagination.

Carroll Baker

Baby Doll

Elizabeth Taylor
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Anika Noni Rose
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Vivien Leigh
A Streetcar Named Desire




Sarah Paulson and Jessica Lange
The Glass Menagerie


Zoe Wanamaker
The Rose Tattoo


Blythe Danner
Suddenly Last Summer

Frankly, this is the "short list" ...we could go on and on... Check out more actresses at Cookbook Of The Day.

As Vermont Goes...

The road below Barbara Carter and Steve Zind's

Safely tucked away in the interior of West Virginia, I was more concerned about Irene than the people in D.C. and Virginia facing what appeared to be an onslaught. I watched the weather incessantly and called with lists of things that needed to be done: charge cell phones, get flashlights, make sure said flashlights had fresh batteries, get food for three days in case the power were to go out, have prescriptions close at hand, have some cash...

After all my calls one friend remarked that after all that preparation, nothing would happen. And they proved to be right... and then there was Vermont.

I hadn't given a thought to all my friends in Vermont. ironically, several days before Irene was scheduled to hit, I got an e-mail from Vermont inquiring as to my safety. I thought, as they did, that we were to far inland. West Virginia was unscathed but Vermont was screwed. All my friends were fine, but it was today before we were able to get info out and to see the devastation.

As with news cycles, hurricane clean up is now taking a back seat to the President's Jobs Speech. Call me old but back in the day -- like 2005 or so, if The President of the United States said jump, the Congress bitched and moaned but eventually said, "How High?" Because THE PRESIDENT, no matter how big a tool, is THE PRESIDENT. And frankly, we have had some real tools. And though I haven't always agreed with them or liked them, and even though I couldn't bear to watch some of them on the television, they were still The President of the United States.

Today we found out that no jobs were created last month. NO JOBS. None. People are scared. Business are scared. The country is broke. There is no confidence that anything can be done in Washington. Congress doesn't even have enough respect to let the President speak. People who want his job claim to be unemployed while scheduling an 12 million dollar beach property renovations or they insinuate that earthquakes and hurricanes are God's way of telling us she doesn't like Washington. It would seem that she doesn't really like Vermont or Texas for that matter.

Steve Zind sent out these pictures from Vermont.



This is was the newly paved road at the bottom of Thayer Road. It was one of the many roads washed away in Vermont.

This photo was entitled: Rush hour on Bethel Mt. Road. The heavy equipment in the background that is rebuilding the road belongs to neighbors who saw a problem and set out to fix it.


Rt 73 dropped into the White River south of Rochester, leaving the community cut off. For six hours, neighbors worked to construct a foot bridge so supplies could be walked in.


When people walked out to find internet and phone service, they weren't alone. They carried messages from friends and family.

The Inn in Rochester, like everyone else, had no power. They did have giant walk-in's filled with food, and so they cooked it and fed their community.

It might just be time for a change in Washington. I say let's draft Bernie Sanders.

The Shackletons Make A Home

Long before Mr. Blandings built his dream house, Elizabeth and Robert Shackleton set out on similar path with their Adventures in Home-Making. As best as I can tell, their house sat somewhere in upstate New York, as they are always mentioning items they bought there, though they often mention items from other far away places, like Pennsylvania! Published in 1922, the book takes you on a virtual room-by-room tour of fixing up and decorating.

After looking around for their dream house, the Shackletons paid $10,000 for this house, barns and eleven acres.

Upon seeing the house they remarked that the, "outward ugliness gave us pause."

The barn would later be painted and stone columns added.

Time marches on...

...and the ugly house becomes a home. While the Shackletons are more than happy to tell us what they paid at the outset, the book is rather lacking on such details as how long it took for their transformation and what their additional costs were. In the section on the bedrooms we are told:

"It was surprising that there were quite so many changes to make as we found necessary; ordinarily, the home-maker would not find, in a house that was finally to fit his ideas, quite so much that needed altering; but that we did find so much to do, both outside and in, will the better show that any one who loves his home and aims to make it comfortable to his ideas can freely alter and transform and successfully meet innumerable obstacles with simple expedients. It is an excellent idea, and worthy of repetition, that luck may be counted upon as one of the resources of the confident home-maker."

Yes, the writing is a bit purple, and run on, but it is quite charming. After reading and re-reading, I am still not sure of the exact bedroom count in the house. I must say, however, that I am hoping, as a "confident home-maker," that luck will always be on my side.

One of joys of old books is finding that special something tucked or written inside. (Generally, I loath anything scribbled inside a book, but I am giving this a pass, largely because they though enough to quote poetry, especially poetry that I love.) On the front free endpaper was this drawing, a quote from William Butler Yeats and a list, one might assume, of the people giving this book as a gift.


The quote is from one of my favorite Yeats poems. As a child, Yeats' father read to him from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, and the impact of those early readings can be seen here.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Ah, to live alone in a bee-loud glade...

Etiquette Wednesday

Your Manners Are Showing, written by that the perky young writer and illustrator Betty Betz will provide your teen-ager with the "bright and breezy low-down on dates, popularity, clothes, jobs, parents, smoking, money, table manners, parties, and dozens of other vital teenage matters."

According to the jacket blurb, Betty Betz is the noted teen-age authority. Written in 1946, this slim volume is aimed at the teenager out there who is treading the murky undercurrent of etiquette. Aided by Anne Clark, who whipped up some nifty little verses to explain various tips along the way, there is nothing the budding teen-ager won't know. It would seem that along with a profound desire to learn manners, teenagers just love to read poetry. Like this one:

Just now the words you'd like to write
Are "dearest, darling, my life's light."
Suppose that in five years or ten
He reads your note aloud -- What then?

While it might have been 1949, one can see that etiquette has many universals. It would be easy enough to update these verses for today's teen-age, like this one:

Just now the words you'd like to tweet
Are, "Send me some photos, topless."
When you meet a prospective employer, My Sweet
You may find yourself jobless.

The previous owner of this book seemed to be having a bit of trouble with conversation and dating as she made a few notes in these particular chapters. She needed to show a bit more animation in her face and concentrate more on the other party. Her temper was also of great concern. Under the following quote is neatly written, "copy this line ten times." The line:

"Be pretty if you can, witty if you must
-- and pleasant if it kills you."

Words to live by.

Restoration Hardware

I just picked up the new Restoration Hardware catalogue or Source Book/Magalog/Catalog "we're not quite sure what to call it" as Gary Friedman, Chairman and Co-CEO, we're not quite sure what to call him, puts it.

The mailman is not speaking to me. This catalogue, all 616 pages of it, is already stirring up controversy. And that might just be the point. Keep an eye out for your haggard mail person as he/she starts dragging these behemoths to your mail slot.

Famous Food Friday -- Colleen McCullough

People often joke that EVERYONE has a a book in them, well it is not a far stretch (especially if you read Famous Food Friday) to assume that EVERYONE has a cookbook in them. Today we are... Cooking With Colleen McCullough.

McCullough was a literary sensation in the late 1970's and 1980's after producing an rather large and rambling novel about Australia entitled: The Thorn Birds. It was ostensibly about a priest waging battle between his love of God and his love of all things female. It was all the rage and in 1983 it was turned into a rambling mini-series.


I came to write about this cookbook, not because of Colleen McCullough but because of Barbara Stanwyck .



Recently I saw an interview with the new "IT" girl, Brit Marling,


who said the actress she most wanted to be like was Barbara Stanwyck . A few days later, I saw Barbara Stanwyck in Annie Oakley.



Then, I was moving something in a desk and I ran across the Barbara Stanwyck Christmas Ornament, my BFF, Beverly gave me. Then I remembered The Thorn Birds, largely because of Barbara Stanwyck, who had a hot sex scene with a naked Richard Chamberlain. It was quite scandalous at the time. And that, my dear readers, is how we got to to Colleen McCullough's cookbook but, as always, I digress...



Colleen McCullough set out to be a doctor, but dermatitis kept her from scrubbing in as a physician, so she turned her interests to neurophysiology. While studying, she had a professor, Jean Easthope. The pair became friends and quickly began cooking together. They proved to be an unlikely, yet interesting mix. McCullough was raised in a meat-and-potatoes household while Easthope was raised by vegetarian parents.

The book is filled with archival prints, drawings and photographs, including a rather lovely kangaroo hunt (unless, of course, you are the kangaroo).


I was quite dismayed that the book failed to include a single kangaroo recipe. Since humans are a bit on the squeamish side and would rather eat pork than pig, venison than deer, so, an attempt was made recently to develop a "people" friendly culinary term for kangaroo. The winner is... "Australus." If you see"Australus" steak on the menu, you will no longer be in the dark.

Since we had no kangaroo, we immediately went to the chocolate. Even kangaroo, sorry, Australus, would be great if just smothered it in this lovely sauce.

Chocolate Rum Sauce

225 g (8 oz) dark chocolate
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons rum

Melt the chocolate and butter together in the top of a double boiler, stir well, and add the rum, stirring again.

As long as we are rambling...

The joy (as well as the curse) of our new technology may well be that we never lose anything. When you snort milk out your nose in the junior high lunch room, chances are it will end up on YouTube. Forever. FOREVER. Every dumbass thing one does, things that used to be forgotten, are now immortalized for better or worse.

The good news is, one no longer has to watch 8 hours of The Thorn Birds to see the naughty bit with Richard Chamberlain and Barbara Stanwyck .