Monthly Archive for September, 2010

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The History Dish: Peach Pie SUPREME

Published on September 5, 2010 in Uncategorized. 5 Comments
Labor Day is here, which means we’re headed toward fall, and inevitably winter.  So take the time this weekend to have one last summer fling and bake Peach Pie Supreme.
My mom cooked up this pie a few weeks ago when I was visiting her in Ohio; she made it with peaches she had picked herself from a farm down the street.  In New York, buying local, hand-picked peaches is a political statement; reciting their provenance, a badge of honor.  In Ohio, a peach down the street is an everyday thing.
My mother and I have often talked about recipes as a way of preserving family history and heritage; this recipe follows a similar train of thought.  It comes from 1,000 Years Over a Hot Stove, by Laura Schenone, a wonderful book about the history of women and the kitchen. It’s the last recipe in Schenone’s book because it’s from her own family: passed down from her husband’s grandmother.  It  holds almost mythic status as the Peach Pie.  The recipe was only located after an exhaustive search, and prepared with great care, because “After all, it’s not everyday you get to eat your grandmother’s pie after a few decades.”
The recipe is available in full online here.  My mother recommends a teaspoon of cinnamon, if you like it.

In the News: NOTABLE EDIBLES: The Cheese Stands Alone

Published on September 3, 2010 in cheese and in the news. 0 Comments
Clare Burson and I were written up in Edible Manhattan this month for the Silver & Ash Dinner concert we did last spring.  It’s a lovely piece, focusing on the source of our inspiration, a 100-year-old piece of cheese, passed down through Clare’s family.
Clare’s got an album coming out; I’ve heard it.  It’s perfectly sad and reflective.  It drops September 14th; join us for the release party at Joe’s Pub.
In themeantime, read the Edible article here.

Why We Need Carls

Published on September 1, 2010 in essays. 5 Comments

This essay, by my friend Patrick Gaughan, arrived in my inbox last night.  I only wish I could write something so beautiful.  Please enjoy.

***

Georgetown, Colorado is a gold rush town.  Jagged Rockies rise on all sides.  The buildings down Main St. boast the original dust-burned facades from the height of Pikes Peak fever, but now house cash registers and rustic railroad prints and myriad variations on the classic black cowboy hat (some with chin ties, some without).

And there are two main attractions from those Wild West glory days, one being the Hamill House, home to a family of mine owners during the gold rush and subsequent silver boom.  A woman named Ellen gave me a tour.  She pointed at things.  She told me what was original and what was not.  She let me wander upstairs by myself.  In the Hamills’ stable, she informed me that the floors were ‘very original.’  I asked questions.  Ellen looked at me quizzically.  I left.

At the south end of Main St. sits the second, the Hotel De Paris, opened in 1878.  The man behind the place was Louis Dupuy, a French linguist who squandered an inheritance, moved to the States, deserted the US Army, changed his name, fled halfway across the country, and opened the most exclusive hotel in Colorado.  Louis charged twice as much as his competitors and filled his rooms every night.  He imported the newest technologies from France and China.  He let restaurant guests point to a trout in an indoor fountain which was then whisked away to a massive kitchen and prepared just as they pleased.  I learned all this from Carl, a guide at the hotel.  Carl was a slow-talking charmer of a storyteller.  He flipped an anecdote in every room and underlined each of them with a quip.  When I told him I was from New York, he said, ‘I forgive you.’

I told Carl about Ellen.

In turn, Carl told me how much he loved his job and how he felt like he knew the eccentric Louis Depuy as well as Louis knew himself.

Without Carls, we will forget where we came from.  Old things will simply become old things, nothing more, separate entities from the human beings who built them, chose them, put them there.  Tours need not be about how ‘original’ something is.  Rather, they’re about the people who walked there and sneezed there and fucked there and died there and how we, in the present, can learn something from them.