Lillian Gish: Bread And Relish

Lillian Gish in Durango, Mexico, filming John Huston's The Unforgiven, 1959. Photo © Inge Morath Foundation.

Lillian Gish epitomized feminine charm and grace. Her Sutton Place apartment was elegant and calm, and Gish welcomed me as if we were old friends, primarily because it was Tennessee Williams who bonded us.

I took Lillian Gish a dish that many had told me was wonderful, and it helped, as always, to incite deep conversation. Although Gish did not cook for me, she made the effort to send me two recipes she thought I would like, because one, she stressed, was terribly healthy and would make and keep me strong, and the other was a tasty accompaniment that would make so many things better, "as our conversations so often do," she added.

Lillian Gish was very concerned with her health--mental and physical--and she talked about her exercises and her diet. The Graham Bread recipe was found by her mother, and it dated, she told me, from  around 1919. It was one of her favorites.

May both of these recipes bring you health and flavor.

GRAHAM BREAD

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons fat

1/4 cupful of brown sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 cake compressed yeast

2 cupfuls lukewarm water

2 cupfuls white flour

3 cupfuls graham flour

1 cupful white flour for kneading

Instructions:

Put the fat, the sugar, and the salt in a mixing bowl, and to them add the yeast that has been dissolved in a little bit of the lukewarm water. Pour over these  ingredients the remainder of the water and stir in the white flour. When the mixture is stiff, add the graham flour, then knead the dough, let it rise, knead again, then place in greased loaf pans, let rise, then bake until knife inserted comes out clean. Use a moderate oven (350 degrees). From Miss Gish: "I don't time it. The bread is ready when it wants to be."

CORN RELISH

Ingredients:

9 ears corn

1 quart vinegar

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons dry mustard

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 medium head of cabbage, chopped

2 medium onions, chopped

3 red peppers, chopped

2 green peppers, chopped

Instructions:

Cook corn in boiling water for about two minutes. Dip in cold water and cut grains from the cobs. Chop the cabbage, onion, and peppers into small pieces and add to corn. Mix vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices and heat to boiling. Add the corn and vegetables and boil until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Pour into sterile jars and seal. This makes about 8 pints.

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Joanne Woodward: Behold the Bread

In 1993 I became a manager of Ecce Panis (Latin for "behold the bread," the statement that is the preface to Communion), a glorious bakery established and operated by Dr. Joseph Santos and his family, who also gave New York such restaurants as The Sign of the Dove, Contrapunto, and Yellowfingers (how many people told me of breakdowns had in Bloomingdale's, followed by cocktails and attentive service at Yellowfingers?) The vans for Ecce Panis ran all over town advertising itself as "the ovens of Sign of the Dove," and indeed the bakery was opened because so many guests were making inordinate requests for extra bread or they were simply filling their pockets and their purses with rolls and loaves.

I worked at both locations of Ecce Panis: the original right next door to The Sign of the Dove at Third Avenue and 65th Street, and the Carnegie Hill location, at Madison and 90th. While I enjoyed working near the actual ovens of Ecce Panis on Third Avenue, I preferred the tiny, beautiful Carnegie Hill location, so perfectly designed and maintained by the bakery's manager Evelina Emmi Rector. 

The neighborhood was truly a village, with neighbors calling each other by name and area stores checking in on each other. Restaurants offered samples of new dishes; the Corner Bookstore raved about new books and offered discounts to friends; Bistro du Nord seemed offended when I would ask for the check; the gone and missed Canard & Company not only offered terrific prepared foods, but would make things on request. It was a magical time that too many of us (by which I mean myself) took for granted.

I loved most of the friends who came into Ecce Panis, and the store was frequently sold out long before we closed our door, because we would honor those who called and asked us to set aside bread that they had to have, often daily. Some of the breads that were most often asked for included the Double Walnut, so called because it was loaded with walnuts and suffused with walnut oil: When you sliced it, the meat of the boule was lavender and the scent of walnuts filled the store. The Herbed Fougasse, shaped like a small Christmas tree, would be picked up and eaten by schoolchildren, or used as tasty swords; the Neo-Tuscan made the best panzanella and rustic sandwiches; the Chocolate Bread was a hedonistic delight, which I would take in the back of the store and smear with mascarpone and raspberry jam for those who needed that particular fix. During the holidays people would offer good money to buy our pies from those who had thought ahead and ordered them: One woman bought the rights to a pie for five hundred dollars.

We offered bread in three sizes: the boule, the baguette, and the batard, which was invariably requested as the "bastard," which is technically correct, but always amused the children in the shop. (We once received a letter from an irate customer about our "coarse" language. Oh, well.)

While working at Ecce Panis, I met Elia Kazan and his wife Frances, who were frequent friends of the shop. Coming in several times a week were our favorite friends: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman.

Joanne is a true Southern lady, kind and self-effacing and interested in how we were feeling and doing: She doled out advice and vitamins and supplements, as well as chocolates that her daughter Nell was concocting for Newman's Own. Joanne often called and asked that bread be put aside for dinners that arose suddenly, and when I asked her how she served the breads, she came in the next day with a sample of her favorite and most requested dish: Sole Cabernet, along with the recipe. It was remarkable, and easy to make.

Joanne and I were both Southerners, and we had grown up around prodigious bakers. We shared recipes for breads and cakes and pies and cookies, and we had a brief but fervent battle of biscuits. One day she brought me a loaf of bread the size of a love seat and urged me to tell  what I thought: It was the best zucchini bread I had ever tasted. Was it because it came from the kitchen of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward? You be the judge.

The two loaves of brioche that were sold at Ecce Panis (classic and pepper) were never in stock for very long, and they led to an ongoing battle we called the pudding wars, because friends came in with recipes and samples of bread puddings that were desserts or savories. I'll share them in a future post.

The San Francisco-based artist Carol Jessen captured the Carnegie Hall Ecce Panis beautifully on this woodblock. I miss that bakery and those people so much, but this image and these recipes can bring it back quickly and happily.

SOLE CABERNET

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 fillets of sole (2 to 2.5 pounds)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 shallots, chopped

2 cups good Cabernet Sauvignon

1 cup Joanne's Hollandaise (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put dabs of butter on the fillets of sole and fold them over crosswise. Add the salt, pepper, and shallots. Place in a baking pan and add the Cabernet Sauvignon. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove and place fish on a plate.

Pour the wine sauce into a saucepan and reduce to 1/2 the original amount. Let cool. Add Joanne's Hollandaise sauce to the wine sauce. Return the sole and the sauce to the baking pan. Place in oven for 5 minutes before serving. Makes 4 servings.

JOANNE'S HOLLANDAISE SAUCE

3 egg yolks

3 tablespoons cold water

1 stick (8 tablespoons) lightly salted butter, melted

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Place the egg yolks and water in the top of a double boiler over hot but not boiling water. Whisk rapidly until the mixture thickens and an instant-read thermometer registers 160 degrees. Remove from heat. Add the butter little by little, while continuing to whisk. Add the pepper and the lemon juice just before using. Makes 2 cups.

Serve with salad and lots of bread, such as sourdough, Neo-Tuscan, Pane Rustico, baguette, or Double Walnut (if you can find versions of these).

ZUCCHINI BREAD


3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups zucchini, grated


Mix flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together. Beat eggs until foamy, add sugar, oil, vanilla, and sifted dry ingredients a little at a time. The mixture will be thick. Add the zucchini--the mixture will be gummy. Pour batter into 2 well-greased 8 x 4 x 2 loaf pans and bake at 350 for 1 hour. Check the loaves at 50 minutes, and if a toothpick comes out clean, it is done. These loaves may be frozen.

Nora Ephron: The Expectations of Deviled Eggs

The most significant meeting I ever had with Nora Ephron was at the premier party, in New York City, of Julie & Julia. Held at the majestic Metropolitan Club, I was the date of Frances Sternhagen, who had a featured role in the film. Nora and I spoke of the following things, although not, perhaps, in this order: Our love of Frances Sternhagen, Meryl Streep, Joan Juliet Buck, Daryl Roth, and deviled eggs. I don't recall how deviled eggs came up, but it was difficult, I later learned, to speak to Nora without food and books coming up. "I've rarely had a deviled egg that lived up to my expectations," she told me. Weeks later, she phoned me to say that the following recipe came very, very close, but we should keep looking. This recipe, which combines deviled eggs with buffalo wings (trust me) is from the cookbook Deviled Eggs by Debbie Moose.

BUFFALO HORNS

1/4 cup chopped, cooked chicken

Buffalo wing sauce to cover chicken, plus 5 teaspoons

6 hard-cooked eggs, peeled, cut in half, and yolks mashed in a bowl

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

1 teaspoon chopped celery, plus more for garnish

Salt and black pepper to taste

Place the chicken in a small bowl and pour in enough Buffalo wing sauce to cover; let sit for at least 5 minutes.

Combine the thoroughly mashed yolks with the butter. Stir in the Tabasco and celery. Lift the chicken from the wing sauce and drain slightly, then add to the yolk mixture, along with the remaining 5 teaspoons Buffalo wing sauce. Taste, then season with salt and lots of pepper.

Fill the whites evenly with the mixture, garnish each egg half with some chopped celery, and allow to sit at room temperature 15 to 20 minutes before serving to let the flavors develop.

Number of servings (yield): 12

Sylvia Sidney: The Straws Have It

Photograph by Mortimer Offner

Sylvia Sidney was intelligent, honest, tough, and funny. She scared a lot of people, but I loved being around her. "I don't bullshit," she told me, "and if you don't, we'll get along fine."

And we did.

Sylvia liked Southern people--for the most part--because they always came to see her with a gift: something to eat; something that smelled good; something to throw on the couch for the dogs she loved like children. "It's okay to show up," she said, "but people like you--Southerners--arrive."

It was how I was taught.

A good interview requires trust and honesty and comfort. Always be honest with the people you're interviewing, but the comfort usually arrives through food and drink. Take them out to eat, or bring them something you've made.

Cheddar Cheese Straws are at almost every Southern wedding or bridge party or bitchy Bingo round, but when I first came to New York, they were foreign to most. Later some companies began to sell them in stores--it was not unlike biting into the paper cob of a roll of  toilet paper, with cayenne added.

The Straws opened up Sylvia Sidney (who would ask for refills in the tin I first sent her), and many other people who would have preferred some root-canal work to being asked about their lives.

The great Nathalie Dupree introduced me to White Lily Flour through her books and her television appearances. White Lily is generous with providing recipes, and this one, for their version of Cheddar Cheese Straws, is easy and delicious. It would please Carrie Nye, because it takes very little effort, and you can socialize as you're preparing.

CHEDDAR CHEESE STRAWS

Ingredients:

•	1 1/2 cups White Lily® Enriched Bleached All Purpose Flour
•	1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
•	2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Cheddar cheese, at room temperature
•	8 tablespoons butter, softened

Instructions:

1.	HEAT oven to 375°F. Combine flour and cayenne pepper in small bowl; set aside.
2.	COMBINE cheese and butter in food processor or with an electric mixer until smooth. Add flour mixture. Mix until well combined.
3.	MAKE straws using cookie press with star attachment, or roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into 1 x 2-inch strips.
4.	BAKE 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Nutritional Information Per Serving:

Serving Size (1/24 4 straws), Calories 100 (Calories from Fat 60), Total Fat 7g (Saturated Fat 0g, Trans Fat 0g), Cholesterol 20mg, Sodium 60mg, Total Carbohydrate 6g (Dietary Fiber 0g, Sugars 0g), Protein 3g; Percent Daily Value*: Vitamin A 0%, Vitamin C 0%, Calcium 0%, Iron 2%.

 

Celebrity Recipes: In the Cards

There's a guy named Jake who is selling vintage celebrity recipes on Zazzle. 

Not only are the recipes interesting (I haven't tried them yet), but they tell us so much about the stars and their gustatory autobiographies are...well, you go and look and decide.

But who could resist Olga Baclanova (she of Freaks fame) and her recipe for Apple Float? I can hear her accent as I read the instructions: "Rub a sufficient quantity of stewed apples through a coarse sieve or mash them thoroughly."  One of us, one of us.

Mamie Eisenhower offers a Pumpkin Chiffon Pie; Harold Lloyd likes pork, and who could live without Regis Toomey's fish recipe?

Most telling is the complete menu for the favorite dinner of Ginger Rogers, which has "a continental piquancy." Well, so do I, so I'm checking it out.

Jake sells these vintage recipes, and I think they'd make nifty postcards.

Especially that Olga Baclanova number.

Here's the website:

http://www.zazzle.com/jakestuff/gifts?cg=196002165476761455 

Myrna Loy: Puff Piece

When I moved to New York City in 1989, I began to interview those people who could tell me about the theatre and the film worlds during the time of Tennessee Williams and those people he cared most about. Tennessee adored many women--both those he knew personally and those whom he only knew via their work.

One of those women was Myrna Loy.

I wrote a letter to Ms. Loy at her Upper East Side apartment, and within a week I heard her distinctive voice on the phone. "What the hell could I possibly tell you?" she asked, but she was chuckling. When I told her about my impossible task (now completed; we'll talk), she said "Well, what the hell. Come over. I'll give you a drink and do my best."

Ms. Loy served me several martinis so dry that I did not produce saliva for nearly a week, and we were soon tipsy and giggly and like old friends. I'll write up her comments some other time, some other place. What is important is what she served with that martini, and I've learned that it is a recipe, allegedly devised in conjunction with the crowning of a Miss Wisconsin many years ago, and much beloved by a certain style of Upper East Side lady.

It's not bad. You provide the liquor and the badinage.

 

Broiled Green Onion and Cheddar Cheese Puffs

Ingredients

• ½ cup mayonnaise 

• 2/3 cup shredded Swiss or aged cheddar cheese

• ¼ cup chopped green onion (or fresh chives or leeks)

• ¼ cup chopped green bell pepper (optional, but it really adds a lovely crunch)

• ½ tsp worcestershire sauce (could use Tabasco/sweet chilli instead, if desired)

• 2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

• Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

• 8 slices toasted hearty brown bread (such as pumpernickel or rye)



Directions

Turn on oven and set to broiler.

In a medium sized mixing bowl combine the mayonnaise, shredded cheese, green onion, green pepper, worcestershire sauce and black pepper; mix well so that all ingredients are thoroughly blended together. Fold in the (previously stiffened) egg whites and stir lightly to combine.

Spoon an equal amount of the cheese and egg white mixture onto each of the eight slices of bread. Place bread on a non-stick baking sheet and place under the broiler until the cheese and egg mixture has puffed up and turned golden brown (about 4 minutes – watch carefully, as it’s very easy to burn things cooked under the broiler).

Serve cooked cheese puffs immediately (can keep warm under a layer of tinfoil for a few minutes, but the cheese and egg mixture will deflate a bit and the bread may soften slightly – the sooner this dish is served, the better).


Makes 8 appetizer sized portions or served 2-4 as part of a meal.