A Homemade Life (4 page)

I
was born in 1978. That means that I lived a good portion of my formative years in the presence of mullets, crimped hair, and shoulder pads, hallmarks of that rollicking decade now known plainly as the eighties. I'm not sure it's good to admit that I was in any way present for such an era, but I'm willing to go out on a limb.

Anyway, it's hard not to feel nostalgic about the eighties. If you think about it, mullets really were a smart, well-meaning invention. Anyone with long hair can tell you that it gets in your face sometimes. Mullets handily took care of this by cropping the front short while leaving the back alone. With a mullet, you got the best of both worlds: long hair without having to choke on it. I don't expect to convince anyone of the truth of this anytime soon, but I am content to try.

My mother did the eighties very well. She could work a pair of shoulder pads like no one else. You should have seen her in the periwinkle dress she wore to my sister Lisa's wedding, the one with the shoulder pads, the open back, and the enormous bow. She looked stunning—a little like royalty, really, like Princess Diana with braided brown hair and a better-looking husband. She was the fashion beacon of Oklahoma City. Our town may not have been Milan or Paris, but if you doubt me, you probably never met my mother.

Like many other beacons of generations past, my mother dove head
first into the trends of her time. Luckily, I do not mean cocaine, or hair crimping, or MTV. In my mother's case, I mean aerobics, with its perky wardrobe of pastel tights and leotards with matching belts, leg warmers, and terrycloth sweatbands. For a large part of my early childhood, my second home was a place called The Workout, an aerobics studio in a strip shopping center about ten blocks from our house. My mother would suit up, pack me a bag of books and other diversions, and off we'd go for entire afternoons. Today, people often ask about the origins of my ability to remember 1980s dance songs, and I tell them that I owe it all to The Workout, to the thud of Reeboks reverberating off the studio mirrors.

My mother was a natural at aerobics. She quickly came to be friendly with the instructors and even considered teaching her own classes. For my part, though I was only four or five, I used my time at The Workout to do some serious thinking about my life. I decided that I wanted to be someone else. Namely, I wanted to be Sherry. She was one of the aerobics instructors. She had a soft voice and leotards in all sorts of bright colors, and her shiny brown hair was something out of a VO5 Hot Oil ad. First, I reasoned, I would have to change my name. Then we would have to spend lots of time together, so that I could learn to be just like her. This could be difficult, I knew, but I had a plan. It happened that around the same time, I had been informed—probably on the playground at preschool, although I can't really remember—that in order to get a driver's license, I would someday have to pass a test requiring me to take a car apart and put it back together. It sounded like an insurmountable task. Clearly, I would never get a driver's license. Instead, I privately decided, I would get Sherry to drive me everywhere. Then we would be together always, forever.

But I did not change my name, and Sherry never drove me anywhere. My mother, however, was invited by the instructors to appear on local television, which struck me as a nice consolation prize. She, along with a team of other Spandex-clad women, did an aerobics demonstration on the morning television show hosted by brothers Butch and Ben McCain. We were both very excited. She later went on to become a personal fitness trainer and is now a Pilates instructor.

But my mother's glory in the 1980s wasn't limited to fashion or exercise fads. She was also very skilled in the realm of white chocolate.

I'm sure you remember white chocolate, that sweet, melty substance made from cocoa butter, milk solids, and sugar. It was first popularized in the mid-eighties, when Nestlé released its Alpine White bar, and it went on to take the country by storm. For a while, it was everywhere, stuffed into brownies and cheesecakes and squiggled on top of biscotti. It even showed up in chip form, invading cookies across the land with its comrade-in-arms, the macadamia nut. White chocolate
was
the eighties, right up there with blackened redfish.

Of course, in the intervening years, white chocolate has fallen out of favor. In some circles, I understand, it ranks up there with mullets among the most vilified relics of the era. But I would like to argue in its favor. I would like to argue that white chocolate made the whole messy decade worthwhile, if only because of one dessert. It is called a white chocolate
cœur à la crème,
a creamy mousse of sorts spooned into a heart-shaped mold and served with a berry sauce, and it appeared on my personal horizon in February of 1987, when
Bon Appétit
ran a recipe for it. My mother, a regular subscriber, had the good sense to clip the recipe, and I had the good fortune of eating it on many occasions.

Cœur à la crème
is a delicious, delicious thing. For a good part of my childhood, it was my favorite dessert. It was made mainly from cream cheese and heavy cream, with a smooth texture that sat somewhere between cheesecake and mousse. It was also very pretty: a velvety, ivory-colored heart whose surface was quilted daintily from the cheesecloth that lined its mold, with a deep red puddle of puréed raspberries on the side. It was beautiful in a precious, bed-and-breakfast kind of way, but it went down like a New York cheesecake, in lusty, sauce-slinging gulps.

My mother made it mainly for dinner parties, but once, when I was in the fourth grade, I begged her to let me bring it to a special lunch with my French class. My teacher, a frail, black-haired Frenchwoman named Madame Boutin, had been teaching us basic food vocabulary—
baguette
and
fromage, pomme
and
poire, poulet
and
viande
—and now we
were to celebrate with a small, brown-bag feast. When I came to class with my mother's
cœur à la crème,
she
ooooooooh
ed approvingly.

“Magnifique,”
she breathed. It most certainly was.

It's sad, really, that with the end of the 1980s, white chocolate went the way of crimping irons and Boy George. Because
cœur à la crème
is really something. That's why, on the eve of a barbecue last summer, I decided to trot it out for an encore. It's cool and unfussy—a little like ice cream, but better—and perfect for a warm, sticky night. We stood at the kitchen counter and ate it straight from the serving platter, eight of us with eager spoons, talking with our mouths full. I highly recommend it, even the straight-from-the-platter part.

CŒUR À LA CRÈME WITH RASPBERRY PURÉE

t
hough this dessert is traditionally served in the shape of a heart, I can't, in good conscience, ask you to run out and buy a special mold for this one recipe. I can't even make
myself
go out and buy one. I don't believe in kitchen equipment that serves only one purpose, even if that purpose is creamy and delicious.

Instead, I use a small colander, the kind you might keep around for rinsing cherry tomatoes or a handful of herbs. Mine has a capacity of 1½ quarts, and it makes for a small, handsome dome. If your colander is larger, that's fine, too; your dome will just be wider and flatter. This dome-shaped version—
dôme à la crème,
as I call it—isn't quite as glamorous as the traditional
cœur,
but it tastes just as good.

Last, use the best white chocolate you can find. I like Valrhona.

FOR THE CŒUR/DÔME

3 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped

One 8-ounce package cream cheese (not low fat), at room temperature

1¼ cups heavy cream

¾ cup powdered sugar, sifted

FOR THE PURÉE

One 10-ounce bag frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed

3 tablespoons sugar

 

First, prepare the mold or colander (see headnote). Cut two sheets of cheesecloth large enough to line its interior and extend beyond its edges enough to enclose the filling completely. Wet the sheets of cheesecloth under the tap, wring them out well, and line them up together, so that they form a double layer. Lay the cheesecloth atop the mold or colander, pressing it smooth along the base and walls and letting the overhang fall over the sides. Set aside.

In a microwavable bowl, microwave the white chocolate on high for 20 seconds at a time, stirring well after each go, until just smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.

Combine the cream cheese, ¼ cup of the cream, and the powdered sugar in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer set to medium speed, beat until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the white chocolate, and beat until very smooth, about 2 minutes. Set aside.

In another medium bowl, beat the remaining 1 cup cream to stiff peaks. Gently fold the cream into the cream cheese mixture. Spoon the finished batter into the prepared mold, smoothing the top with a spatula. Fold the cheesecloth over to enclose it completely. Place the mold on a rimmed sheet pan or another rimmed dish. Refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Meanwhile, prepare the raspberry purée. In a blender or food processor, combine the thawed raspberries with their juice and the sugar. Blend until smooth. Press the purée through a sieve into a small bowl to remove the seeds. Cover and chill for up to 4 hours.

When you're ready to serve, remove the mold from the refrigerator, and discard the liquid, if any, that has collected beneath it. Pull back the cheesecloth, and carefully invert onto a serving platter. Gently pull away and discard the cheesecloth. Serve in generous dollops in shallow bowls, topped with a spoonful of raspberry sauce.

 

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

E
very night, when he came home from work, my father went to the kitchen. First, to set the mood, he'd take off his suit jacket and pour himself a Scotch. Then he'd while away a few minutes at the counter, his belly pressed against the drawer pulls, leafing through the day's mail. Then, fully readied, he'd open the refrigerator and, easing into action, begin the final stage of the day, dinner. That was where he relaxed: in the kitchen, in the space between the refrigerator and the stove. Sometimes he would scour the cookbook shelf, looking for ideas, but mainly he would move by feel and by taste—stewing, sautéing, melding this and that, and much to my consternation, hardly ever keeping note of what he'd done. I can only think of a handful of recipes that he ever wrote down in their entirety, his potato salad being one of them. (I'm pretty sure he knew it was his best shot at immortality.) His experiments were many, and most of them were fruitful, but his was an uncalculating science. His cooking was personal, improvised, and maddeningly ephemeral.

Burg was never a late sleeper. Most weekend mornings, he would get up early to cruise the garage sales in his khakis and topsiders. He had a good eye for secondhand shopping, and with few exceptions (like the kitchen scale that zeroed at 700 grams and still sits, unused, in my closet) he usually did us proud. Over the years, he brought home old
leather suitcases embossed with loopy initials, oil paintings in gilt frames, coffee grinders, and silver candy dishes. He even found a few vintage lapel pins shaped like ladybugs or flowers or delicate little spiders, which always made my mother swoon. Then, at mid-morning, he sat down with me, and we ate breakfast.

Sometimes he made omelets, and sometimes he scrambled eggs. But most of the time, our breakfasts tended toward the sort of thing that could be doused in maple syrup, such as pancakes or French toast. From an early age, I was schooled in the doctrine of pure maple syrup. As a native Canadian and former East Coaster, my father would have nothing else. His chosen brand came in a round-bellied plastic jug the color of Silly Putty and had a permanent home in the door of our refrigerator, right next to the jar of horseradish. It would loll from side to side whenever we opened the door, dropping crusty bits of dried syrup onto the shelf. I loved unscrewing the cap, the way the crystallized sugar made a raspy crackle under the grooved plastic lid.

My father's pancakes were very good, and I'll tell you more about them in a minute, but as is the case for most things cooked in lots of hot fat, it was his French toast that I couldn't get enough of. He would put a cast-iron skillet on the stove and, just to its left, on the tiled counter, a Pyrex brownie pan. Then he'd take up his station in front of them, cracking the eggs into the Pyrex pan and whisking them lightly with milk. Working methodically, he would drag slices of stale bread through the square, pale yellow puddle, soaking them like fat sponges, and then he'd slide them, bubbling and hissing, into the pan. I could smell it from my bedroom at the other end of the house, the smell of custard meeting hot fat. At the table, I'd douse them in syrup and swallow in gulps, almost burning my tongue. His French toast was exceptional, and I'll tell you why: it was cooked in oil, not butter.

It sounds strange, I know. Most people make a face when I tell them, so don't feel bad. I'm used to it. But really, it was tremendous. My father had done his share of comparisons, and for a stellar outcome, he swore by oil. Even in the last weeks of his life, lying in a hospital bed and hooked up to a morphine drip, he was counseling me and my sister
on the merits of oil over butter. The hot oil, he explained, seals the surface of the bread, forming a thin, crisp, outer crust. Meanwhile, the center melts into a soft, creamy custard, not unlike the texture of a proper bread pudding. The man was clearly onto something, because I've never had a better French toast.
Never.
I don't throw those words around lightly.

For a long time, I wasn't sure I could replicate it. But I figured it was worth a shot. Going the rest of my life without it wasn't a palatable option. So I consulted a few recipes, bought myself a bottle of neutral-tasting oil, and set to work.

The key, and I learned this the hard way, is that you can't pussyfoot around when it comes to the amount of oil. This is no time to worry about calories. It's time to upend the bottle and
pour
. A glug will not do. I don't understand those French toast recipes that call for only a tablespoon or two of fat. How on earth can you get a nice, crispy crust if you don't have lots of hot, bubbling oil? You cannot. Let's not argue about this.

The second point to note is that you need somewhat squishy bread, and it needs to be slightly stale. When it comes to bread for my dinner table, I like rustic, chewy types with thick, craggy crusts, but for French toast, you want something a little softer and more mundane. That way, it easily soaks up the custard, giving you a lovely, moist center.

I can say this all now, but it wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much. I had to eat my way through some pretty crappy French toast to get back to my father's. But I'm happy to report that I finally got it. Or as close as I can get, anyway, given that he never had a recipe to start with.

It was an April morning, I think, when I finally got it right. My father was born in April, so it felt auspicious. It was unseasonably cool that morning, but the sun was out—a rarity in Seattle so early in the season—and I remember thinking that its yellowy light made the new leaves look like tiny stained-glass windows. It reminded me of a poem that my father once wrote on the back of an index card. I found it in his bathroom drawer about a year after he died, when we were going through his old clothes and cufflinks. I think it was intended for my
mother, although she let me keep it. I don't think Burg would mind my sharing it, but if he does, I trust he'll find some way to let me know. Or then again, since I've said awfully nice things about his cooking, maybe he'll let me enjoy my French toast in peace.

SUNRISE (A TOO-LONG HAIKU)

The sun bursts

Out of the eastern night

And flames the sky

With joy—

Your smile.

BURG'S FRENCH TOAST

i
had to make a lot of phone calls to get this French toast right. My mother, my sister, and my uncle Arnie all had a hand in helping me to develop this recipe. What follows is a result of our pooled memories and my own trial and error.

My mother swears that Burg always made his French toast with day-old “French bread,” or its Oklahoma City grocery store equivalent, an oblong loaf of squishy bread with a thin, crisp crust. You're welcome to use any bread you like, so long as it has a soft, light crumb and isn't too dense. Some baguettes work well. I've also used challah, and I think it's nice, although my sister doesn't like it. Whatever you use, make sure that it's a day or two old.

As for the oil, when I say to “coat the bottom of the skillet,” I mean to
completely
coat it. Don't just pour in a little bit and let it run around until it covers the pan. You want a good amount of oil here. You won't be sorry. As my sister says, oil is a “converting force” in French toast cookery. Once you've tried it, you won't go back.

 

3 large eggs

1 cup whole milk

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

Canola or other flavorless oil, for frying

6 to 8 slices day-old bread (see headnote), cut on the diagonal, about ¾ inch thick

Pure maple syrup, for serving

 

Break the eggs into a wide, shallow bowl or, as my dad did, an 8-inch square Pyrex dish. Whisk the eggs to break up the yolks. Add the milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg and whisk to blend.

Place a heavy large skillet—preferably cast iron—over medium-high heat, and pour in enough oil to completely coat the bottom of the skillet. Let the oil heat until you can feel warmth radiating from it when you hold your hand close over the pan. To test the heat, dip the tip of a
finger into the egg mixture—
not
the oil!—and flick a drop into the oil. If it sizzles, it's ready.

Meanwhile, when the oil is almost hot enough, put 2 to 3 slices of bread into the egg mixture, allowing them to rest for 30 seconds to 1 minute per side. They should feel heavy and thoroughly saturated, but they shouldn't be falling apart. Carefully, using tongs, place the slices in the skillet. They should sizzle upon contact, and the oil should bubble busily around the edges. Watch carefully: with hot oil like this, the slices can burn more quickly than you would think. Cook until the underside of each slice is golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully flip and cook until the second side is golden, another 1 to 2 minutes. Remove to a plate lined with a paper towel, and allow to sit for a minute or two before serving.

Repeat with the remaining bread. If, at any point, the bread starts to burn before it has a chance to brown nicely, turn the heat back a little. You want to keep it nice and hot, but not smoking.

Serve hot with maple syrup.

 

Yield: 6 to 8 slices, serves 2 to 3