Hanne Blank's Blog, page 12

And on the fifth day, there was another book giveaway!

As promised, today being the 5th of September, I am having another giveaway for another copy of the shiny new-and-improved brand spankin' not-even-on-the-shelves-yet Big Big Love.

To win, simply write a clerihew on the historical personage of your choice and post it in the comments on this blog between now and noon EST tomorrow, Tuesday, September 6.

A clerihew, for those unfamiliar, is a humorous biographical poem that consists of two rhymed couplets (AA/BB) whose length and meter may be odd for humorous effect; the first line is the name of the individual. For example:

Richard Nixon

Was guilty of dirty tricks in

The White House, while resident

As the country's president.

or

Marie Antoinette

Completely lost her tête

When they took the king and queen

To meet la guillotine.

 

Best clerihew wins a book.

Just as a reminder, you must do this here at hanneblank.com to be entered to win the book– if you read this elsewhere via RSS or what-have-you, and you post your comments there instead, I will never see your comments.

                                      

Choose the Nutter Butter

Well, we went off together, the Belovedary and the BeloveDad and I, to the Maryland State Fair so as to allow me, the token Midwesterner of the bunch, to get my Fair on a little bit.  I do mean a little bit, because the Maryland fair, by the state fair standards of my youth, is tiny.

Nevertheless it remains a state fair, and this year was a good one for tatted and crocheted lace, and fairly good for hand hooked rugs, though not a great year for quilts if you ask me.  There was some pretty embroidery, although not much of it to my personal aesthetic tastes, and some very nice knitted work.

I got my cow-ogling on.  I like cows.  Always have.  I prefer dairy breeds to beef breeds, and am partial to Brown Swiss, who have such brilliantly expressive eyes and ears. We watched a judging for two-year-old Holsteins, at which I did what I always do at livestock shows and see if I can pick the winners.  I usually can pick at least one and often two.  Either this means that I have an excellent untutored eye for cattle, or that a really good looking cow is fairly easy to spot.  I'm guessing the latter.

There were sheep and goats and some glossy, well-fed poultry.  There were plenty of healthy-looking swine, as is typical at the Maryland fair.  A gorgeous long inquisitive Duroc sow tried to convince me I wanted to skritch her back, which if I knew her I would be only too happy to do, but I'm quite aware that pigs bite and I may be stupid but I'm not stupid enough to reach into the pen of a sow I don't know.  There were sows who'd recently farrowed, with their piglets, many of them bellying up to the milk bar.  These were the cutest of the bunch.

But.  I know y'all don't read this blog for the farm report.  Even with cute piglet pictures.  So let me tell you about the food situation at the MD State Fair.

Previous years' experimentation has taught me that one of the things worth seeking out at the fair is pit lamb.  This is lamb roast, sauceless but barbecued, cooked rather like pit beef.  Only it's better, because of being lamb.  It's thinly sliced and served on some sort of bun or roll.  This year, the lamb was very good, not overly fatty but not dry, but the roll was a squishy anemic disappointment.  This is altogether too frequently the case, alas.  I am frequently displeased by breads and didn't have high hopes, but still.  The bread should at least not do the lamb a disservice, I feel.

So.  Protein (and squishy bread) on board, we moved on to the first of three other gastronomic items on our checklist: deep-fried Oreos.  I had been told by a reliable informant that there was a particular stand at the fair this year that had both deep-fried Oreos and a reputation for keeping the fryer hot enough that things were not oil-soaked horrors when you bit into them, so off the Belovedary went to acquire same.  He returned with a sampler of deep-fried sandwich cookies, three Oreos and two Nutter Butters.

That's the Nutter Butters in the foreground.  Full of trepidation — trying deep-fried snack food items is my equivalent of going on scary thrill rides — I decided to try a Nutter Butter first and friends, I was really not at all convinced when I put it in my mouth that things were not going to end in tears.  Then I bit into it and…

… it was actually pretty good.  What turned out to be key was the filling.  Nutter Butter filling has a pronounced peanut taste in addition to its sweetness, and a sturdy hit of salt for balance.  This let it hold its own against the batter and the oil, which, for the record, had indeed been hot enough, as promised.  These were greasy but in the good way, not the bad one.

By contrast, the Oreo was undistinguished.  It makes a prettier fried item, with its neat round shape, but the filling is bland and the cookie — as anyone who has ever eaten an Oreo knows — may be black in color but it is decidedly not intensely chocolatey in flavor.  This was coated in batter and deep-fried with the result that there was, as Gertrude Stein famously said about something else entirely, no there there.

The moral of the story: if life offers you a choice between deep-fried Nutter Butters and deep-fried Oreos, choose the Nutter Butters.

I confess I would've tried the deep-fried Buckeyes but I was afraid the Buckeyes would have been made, as they so often are when they are made by people who are not me, with powdered milk, which would've made me sick.  So.

We continued on to view other bits of the Fair, and while we were at it, to keep our eyes peeled for two other food-related items.  First, the legendary red velvet funnelcake.  This we did not find, which is probably just as well for reasons pertaining to the evil juice of the cow and my inability to tolerate same.

Second, the formerly legendary Bomono's Turkish Taffy, a candy I ate as a kid which was discontinued in the late 1980s, but which I read somewhere had recently been revived.  I hadn't seen it anywhere locally, however.  I figured I'd have to wait until the next time I went to New York and could get to Economy Candy.  (You do know from Economy Candy, right?  It's the real deal.  Accept no substitutes.) Then the local newspaper kindly informed the general public that we would be able to find at the candy-by-the-pound stall at the fair, which was mightily encouraging.  I did indeed find it there, and bought four bars, two vanilla and two chocolate.  They had the banana and strawberry flavors as well, but I am not one of those who enjoys artificial banana or strawberry flavors.

I haven't dug into them yet to see whether they taste like I remember them, because to be honest the flavor hardly matters.  The whole point of a Bomono's Turkish Taffy  (which is actually a nougat) is its tactile interactivity, not its taste: this is non-Newtonian candy, which will, if you smack the bejesus with something hard, shatter.  Alternately you may exercise your right to deal with it in the chewy, stretchy format more traditional to taffy.  The smack-and-shatter is terrifically satisfying, though, and I commend it to you all.

                                      

And the winner is…

Tari!  Thanks for your delightful limerick — the slant rhyme totally got me.  You'll be receiving your copy of the all-new, fabulously illustrated Big Big Love in the mail soon.

And for everyone who didn't win this time, no worries.  There are 4 more copies yet to be won!  And, if you are a fan of Mrs. Avoirdupois, I've given her a few copies to give away via her Twitter feed (@MrsAvoirdupois) so you might want to keep an eye on that as well.

 

                                      

Back… and an electrical book giveaway!

I'm back, following many things including but not limited to a four-day power outage that Hurricane Irene left in the wake of her visit to Our Fair City last weekend.  The power came back on last night just after we went to bed, which prompted a round of scurrying about the house making sure everything was appropriately electrifying and electrifying appropriately.  I must say that here in the future, the electrical lights are alarmingly bright.  I kinda liked the candlelight.  (Everyone looks prettier.)

I must also say that having a well-stocked pantry has proved itself a blessing once again.  Since we had running water, and our stovetop runs on gas, and we had matches with which to light it (since the electrical ignition wasn't working), we could cook without trouble.  Although we lost a fair quantity of perishable food over time, it wasn't as bad as it might've been.  We managed to eat through quite a bit of what was in the house by dint of strategic planning of the "well, what's likely to go bad first?" variety and the use of a cooler and some ice.  All in all, four days of homecooked meals were achieved without needing to go to the grocery store or, indeed, out to restaurants, and that's not nothing.

Anyhow!  Enough about that.  What I came here to talk about today is the new Big Big Love, which… is gonna be in stores on or perhaps slightly before September 20.

And I have advance copies already, right here in my hot little hands.  They look uh. maze. ing.  I mean that seriously.  This is one good lookin' book: all I did was write some words.  Fat Bottom Boudoir's photo on the cover, Elizabeth Tamny's art inside, and Ten Speed Press / Celestial Arts's page design and layout made it gorgeous.

Between now and September 20, I am going to give away five — yes, you heard me right, five signed, personalized copies of the book to five lucky winners.  On September 1,  September 5, September 10, September 15, and September 20, I'll be having book giveaways right here in this very blog.

So without further ado….

SEPTEMBER 1 BIG BIG LOVE GIVEAWAY!

Today I'm going to give a copy of the new Big Big Love to the person who writes — and posts as a comment to this blog — the best limerick that includes the word "electrical."

Limericks don't have to be dirty.  But if the mood strikes, go for it.  Post your electrical limericks below and enjoy!

 

 

                                      

Mrs. Avoirdupois Explains it All For You: A Visit To The Doctor Edition

Mr. and Mrs. Avoirdupois spend August at their beach house, situated in a lovely, shaded, breezy little cove just off the coast of the late nineteenth century.  There's no Internet there, naturally (though a little bird tells me that she goes into town daily to check Twitter on her smartphone!), so I told her that she should send me her August guest post in the mail, and I'd put it up online for her.

And so she did.  Click here for the PDF.

 

Mrs. Clarence L. Avoirdupois is the Very Senior Lecturer in Deportment at Miss Hanne's Academy for Extremely Wayward Girls.  She answers your etiquette questions regarding all matters corpulent each Tuesday the Eenth.  Queries may be directed to Mrs. Avoirdupois via the comments section in this blog or at her Twitter page.

                                      

Happy Birthdayversary Art

Tomorrow is my Belovedary's birthday, and our 15th anniversary.

So I had my dear wonderful brilliant talented gorgeous (and, gentlemen, single!) friend Elizabeth Tamny turn into amazing calligraphy-art a little love poem I wrote for my Belovedary a few years back.

It's so gorgeous I couldn't wait an extra day to give it to the Belovedary.  Or to share it with all of you.

 

Words by Hanne Blank, Art and Calligraphy by Elizabeth Tamny. Click to embiggen.

 

Happy Birthdayversary to everyone.

                                      

See you in September

I'm up to my firm but pliant backside in deadlines between now and the end of August and something has to shift, so what's shifting are a few of the truly optional things.  Such as blogging and other forms of social media-ing.

If you need me, email is the best way to reach me.

Mrs. Avoirdupois' guest column will run on Tuesday the Eenth this month as usual.

But as for me, I will write at you all again in September.

Have fun and do good.

                                      

now I will tell you what to do

Eat:

A salad: ripe nectarines, pitted and cut into wedges + peeled chunked fresh cucumber in equal volume to nectarines + slivered raw sweet onion, as much as you like + shredded fresh mint leaves, a handful or so + fresh lemon juice, plenty + good olive oil, a healthy drizzle + salt to taste + freshly ground black pepper.  Toss, wait 10 minutes or so for the flavors to mingle.  Eat.
A warm dessert: ripe peaches, peeled and sliced, sauteed in butter (or your favorite non butter substitute that is butteresque in flavour) over moderate heat until they begin to caramelize.  While they are cooking, in another pan, saute rolled oats in a small skosh of butter (or see above) until just beginning to take on color, sprinkle with several tablespoons brown sugar and a little ground cinnamon, stir and saute until sugar is melted.  Pour the oats over the peaches.  Eat.
A frozen dessert:  Freeze several ripe peeled bananas that you have cut into chunks.  Do the same with several ripe peeled peaches, or several cups of ripe peeled canteloupe or other melon.  When everything is frozen, whiz the bananas in a blender until smooth and slightly fluffy.  Whiz in the peaches or melon.  Serve in a tall glass and eat with a spoon.
A somewhat more adult version of the above: Freeze the bananas as described above.  Whir them in the blender with a healthy tot of chocolate liqueur.  Stir in a handful of dark chocolate chips.  Fill your glass(es) or bowl(s), then pour another healthy tot of chocolate liqueur over.

Read:

Jonathan Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci .  One of the best-written biographical histories I have ever read.  A beautiful, seamless, multidisciplinary piece of exemplary historiography on a very interesting and complicated subject.  Colonialism, missionary efforts, culture clash, empire, learning, philosophy, and the massive and critical enigma — in the eyes of the West — that is China.  A book that becomes more relevant every time I read it.
Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: American Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race.  There are few books that do as well at demonstrating the ways in which categories of "race" are constructed as this one.  For this reason alone, it's an important book to know, because we live in a racist world and we participate daily in racist systems whether we are conscious of it or not as well as whether we intend it or not.  Because the book deals primarily with how pale-skinned European people of various backgrounds, classes, and social milieux gradually became part of a unified "white American" category, it is particularly useful for how it removes the opportunity to indulge in the common misperception that race is a type of natural or de facto human division based on skin color or facial features.  In reality, what "race" is, who belongs to what "race," and how those things get decided are changeable social factors whose transformation Jacobson traces over time.
Jane Shaw, Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and Her Followers.  This is a juicy doozy, somewhere between biography and straight-up archival/documentary history.  The subjects are choice, in the way that only people who seem to halfway occupy a reality we all recognize, and halfway live in their own very special and specific universe that exists at a slightly odd angle, can be.  Shaw does a lovely and fair-minded job of keeping her subjects human and sympathetic despite their concerted strangeness, self-absorption, and, sometimes, downright delusion.  This book only looks like it's going to be a big heavy academic title.  Trust me, you want a big bowl of popcorn with this one.  I'm only halfway through it myself and I find myself slowing down because I'm enjoying it too much to have it end.

 

                                      

Gluten-free pie crust

This weekend I hosted a little get-together whose theme was Deviled Eggs and Pie, those being the two things I most want to eat when it's hot aside from fresh, mostly raw, veggies and lots of dead-ripe fruit.  One of my guests was intolerant to gluten, so I decided it was high time to start dabbling in gluten-free pie.

In many ways, I think a gluten-free piecrust is one of the easier things to attempt so far as GF baking goes.  Piecrusts, after all, are meant to be handled as little as possible so that they don't develop too much gluten.  The flakiness, crispness, and crumbliness characteristic of non-gluten doughs are precisely the sorts of qualities that a good pie dough is supposed to have.

On the other hand, gluten-free doughs can get sandy easily, and that's not precisely what you want in a pie crust.

Finding a happy medium seemed key to me, so after having perused a half-dozen GF pie crust recipes online — Shauna Ahern's is one I plan to try in future, but didn't have the gumption to go out and acquire four kinds of GF flours I don't normally keep in the house in addition to the two I do right now — I picked up a box of King Arthur Flour's GF all-purpose baking flour mix and figured what the hell, I'd make my regular pâte brisee with it, just to play into the potential for sandiness, and see how it worked out.

Answer: Pretty well, honestly.

Can you tell which one of these three pies has gluten?

A couple of tips, based on this experience…

Rolling out gluten-free doughs is tricky.  They break and tear very easily.  I decided to take a cue from cracker- and beaten-biscuit making and pound the dough thin instead of trying to roll it.  Whacking it firmly with the rolling pin (I use either a French or a Asian-style one-piece wooden "dowel" style rolling pin, depending on which one my hand lands on when I open that kitchen drawer) got the job done without tearing it.
If even beating the dough is not getting the job done, you might consider simply pressing it into the pie pan like you would if it were a pâte sucrée and not a brisée.  It's not like anyone's gonna know, once the pie is filled.
Moving gluten-free doughs once they're rolled out is tricky for the same reasons.  Lacking one of the snazzy bigass (this is a technical term) metal spatulas they sell at King Arthur that can move an entire pie crust while supporting it the while, I gingerly lifted the edges of the beaten-thin crust and slid my forearms under it, then had my Belovedary quickly slide the pie dish underneath.  I still had a little bit of cracking, but nothing that the oven heat didn't sort out.

The pies all came out beautifully.  In the photo above, the peach pie (regular wheat flour crust) is at bottom; the gluten-free blueberry is up and to the right, and the gluten-free Shaker lemon pie is up and to the left.
The crusts tasted very good.  The gluten-free crusts were indeed on the sandy-textured side, not too unexpected.  This was actually very nice with the Shaker lemon pie, whose interior is a sort of marriage of marmalade and custard and is made with only four ingredients: thinly sliced whole lemons, sugar, salt, and eggs.  I did not like the gluten-free crust's texture as well with the blueberry pie, although this may in fairness be because I left it slightly underbaked in favor of having more whole berries left in the filling (the longer the heat the more likely berries are to burst).  The better-done gluten-free crust on the Shaker lemon pie tasted nicer and had a more assertive texture.
Here are two closeups to show you some of the difference in the gluten vs. gluten-free crust textures.

This is a wheat crust.  You can make out some of the layering in the crust.  This is enabled by the gluten forming thin sheets around bits of fat.  Wheat crusts puff somewhat as they bake, as well, thanks to steam formation within little gluten pockets.

At the edge of the gluten-free Shaker lemon pie, you  see a fine-grained texture with none of the layering or puffing.  It looks more like shortbread, and acts like it, too.
Oh and!  If you decide to dabble in gluten-free piemaking, don't forget that you want to make sure your thickeners for fruit pies are also gluten-free.  I used a half-and-half blend of tapioca starch and cornstarch, and it worked beautifully.
                                      

apologies for unanswered mail

Dear Internet,

This evening I discovered that at some time in the past, I made an error configuring some of the email settings for this domain (hanneblank.com), the result of which is that all email sent to addresses at this domain has, for the past several months, been lingering in a sort of electronic Purgatory.

Having done a swift sift through the 3800+ email messages in said Purgatory — a task somewhat speeded by the fact that I do not have a penis nor any desire to make my nonexistent penis any larger, harder, or more impressive in any way; further speeded by my lack of faith that anyone in sub-Saharan Africa has lately died and left me millions, and knowing the names of the banks with which I actually hold accounts  – it has also become clear to me that there should have been more messages even than that, and that there is a high likelihood that some of the earliest messages had already been permanently flushed from Purgatory by some /dev/null demon or other by the time I discovered the error of my ways.

This is to say that:

IF you emailed me, at a hanneblank.com email address, at some point in the past four months or so

AND you got no response

AND the issue is still relevant

AND you would still like me to respond to you,

THEN please do let me know by resending your original email with a note saying "hey, I think the original of this got eaten in the Great Email Purgatorium Of Twenty-Eleven" or something along those lines.

 

Thanks for your patience and your understanding.