Archive for the ‘Memorial Tributes’ Category

The Best Finger Food Ever

Friday, August 14th, 2009
Functional yet beautiful, Florette Zuelke's round garden (shown here in 1980) won a prize from the PBS show "Crockett's Victory Garden." (Courtesy of Ena Haines)

Functional yet beautiful, Florette Zuelke's round garden (shown here in 1980) won a prize from the PBS show "Crockett's Victory Garden." (Courtesy of Ena Haines)

 
I promised in my last post that I would have more recipe tributes to the late Florette Zuelke. Here is the first. Ena and Michael Haines brought these lovely little open sandwiches to the memorial party for Florette last weekend.
 
Both decorative and delicious, they epitomized Florette’s elegant cookery.
 
Ena grew up spending every summer at Singing Brook Farm in Hawley, Massachusetts, with her mother Toni and sister Betsy. When Ena married Michael, the Farm community welcomed him with open arms. Florette was the undisputed queen of chic clothing and cuisine in that community.
  
A hint from me: the dense white sandwich bread in my recent recipe for BOLTs would probably work well for these squares. But I’m not pushing!
 
Florette hosts an informal "do" in 1981; she loved red bandanas. (Courtesy of Ena Haines)

Florette hosts an informal "do" in 1981; she loved red bandanas. (Courtesy of Ena Haines)

 
Checkerboard Cherry Tomatoes
 
From the Garden and Kitchen of Florette
Narrated by Michael Haines
 
 
Ingredients:
 
packaged white bread, firm and dense such as Pepperidge Farm
freshly made pesto sauce (I use Craig Claiborne’s recipe. Harvesting and chopping basil leaves was often a communal activity in Florette’s kitchen. The job goes quickly with good fellowship, conversation, and wine.)
freshly picked red and yellow cherry tomatoes
 

checkerboard squares web
 
Instructions: 
 
Cut off the bread crusts and make a single layer of bread on a cutting board or cookie sheet. 
 
Spread the bread with pesto sauce. 
 
Halve the cherry tomatoes, leaving semispheres. 
 
Place the cherry tomatoes in rows, alternating colors for the checkerboard look. 
 
Cut the bread in squares, each holding a half tomato. 
 
The eye appeal, hand appeal, and mouth appeal of this dish make it a perfect summer hors d’oeuvre. Florette was a skillful and passionate gardener. An exacting cook, and a warm and charming hostess. She was generous with her time and efforts, loving to her friends, and fun to be with. Thank you, Florette.
 
Michael and Ena

Michael and Ena

Figuring Out Florette

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
Florette in the Mid-1990s
Florette in the Mid-1990s.  Thanks to Sue Stone and Dennis Anderson for sharing photos for this remembrance.
 
On Saturday our small community gathered to remember one of my hometown’s legendary personalities. Florette Zuelke, my neighbor in Hawley, Massachusetts, passed away in April at the age of 90. Florette will be remembered for her passion for Hawley’s history, for her sense of style, and for her strong opinions on a variety of subjects.
 
Florette was a mixed blessing in many ways to her neighbors. Like most human beings, she had strengths that could also be liabilities. She painstakingly created gourmet meals, but her culinary perfectionism could daunt plainer cooks. She valued creativity, but those whom she judged less than creative often felt snubbed. She charmed men but tended to ignore (and therefore antagonize) their spouses.
 
She was a caring friend but was frequently thwarted by her own forthrightness. She wanted the best for her neighbors and her town, but her idea of “the best” was often rigid and tended to frustrate those around her. She came up with countless brilliant ideas but usually wanted others to implement them.
 
Perhaps most tryingly to her neighbors, she always wanted to bring appetizers to dinner parties—and invariably arrived an hour and a half late.
 
Solitude and dementia claimed Florette long before death did, and she alienated many of her friends as she got older. Few of us visited her at the end of her life in the nursing home to which she had moved.
 
In her heyday, however, Florette was amazing. Born in the small Midwestern city of Appleton, Wisconsin, she was raised with a strong sense of self and a love of music and culture.
The Belle of Appleton, Wisconsin

The Belle of Appleton, Wisconsin

 
She moved to New York City to serve as executive secretary to conductor Robert Shaw at Juilliard and spent most of her professional career in music in one form or another.
 
She helped singers find their pitch at the Robert Shaw Chorale; worked with renowned composer/businessman Goddard Lieberson at Columbia Records; and served in a unique capacity at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, preparing lavish receptions to follow the performances of visiting artists.
 
Lieberson established the tradition of LPs at Columbia Records, nurtured the company’s classical department, and pioneered in recording original cast albums of Broadway musicals. I was always told that Lieberson was the love of Florette’s life, although their affair never supplanted his marriage to dancer Vera Zorina.
 
Florette became a close friend of composer Alice Parker at Juilliard and spent many summers renting an apartment at the Parkers’ Singing Brook Farm in Hawley. There she was a lively addition to what I remember as a golden summer community.
 
Back in New York, where I visited her once or twice when I was a child, she looked exactly like the chic urban career girls in movies. She was fashionable, nerveless (when she couldn’t understand one of James Beard’s recipes she simply telephoned the famous food writer), and glamorous beyond belief.
 
  
Florette in the Big Apple:  with Mitch Miller, a Mystery Man (ideas, anyone?), and Liberace

Florette in the Big Apple: with Mitch Miller, a Mystery Man (ideas, anyone?), and Liberace

 
In the 1970s Florette decided to retire and build a home in Hawley, which she called “Hawleywood.” It featured an eclectic Yankee-barn floor plan and a fantastic circular garden.
 
During a brief marriage she gave up her apartment in New York, a move that proved to be a mistake; her life’s artistry needed a grander palette than Hawley. Nevertheless, Florette threw herself into town affairs. She served as town clerk and was active in the historical commission.
 
She participated in the resurrection of the Sons & Daughters of Hawley in the 1980s, helping to transform the organization from a venue for annual reunions into a full-fledged historical society. She organized projects for the Sons & Daughters, helped start their newsletter, and badgered a colleague into audiotaping the memories of older Hawleyites. She hosted meetings in which she cooked ambrosial food as ideas were thrown around by artists, historians, and humanists in town.
 
Above all, Florette opened doors and resources to her friends and neighbors with the wave of a dramatically clad arm. She also offered amusement galore. Almost everyone I know has a Florette story.
 
Peter Beck, who bought Florette’s house and was a good friend to her longer than most, shared one with me recently. In the mid-1980s, according to Peter, Route 2 in Charlemont was being paved. Driving to Avery’s General Store one day (probably much too fast), Florette was stopped by a policeman on the work detail.
 
Unable to interpret his hand signals, she got out of her car and proceeded to instruct the man in the proper way to gesture. She dramatically swept her arms through the air to demonstrate how to signal a driver to stop or proceed.
 
When she had finished with the poor fellow, says Peter, she went off to do her shopping—only to return on the way home with several pairs of white cotton gardening gloves purchased at Avery’s. She distributed them to the road crew, explaining that the men should wear the gloves in order to make their now graceful hand signals more visible to motorists.
 
So persuasive, so daunting, was Florette that the men meekly donned the gloves. “Oblivious to the fact that road construction is dirty work,” concluded Peter, “Florette introduced style, making the project a white-glove affair.”
 
On Saturday we found time for lots of stories like this one, as well as a few songs. We enjoyed remembering Florette as she once was—elegant and caring; fun and funny; passionate about music, food, Hawley, gardens, and people.
 
When we were first planning the memorial Peter suggested “something Venetian, something Balinese, something Auntie Mame.”
 
The last of those ideas was perhaps the most appropriate, given Auntie Mame’s signature line, “Life is a banquet.” It’s an apt epitaph for the loveable, maddening, delicious Florette.
 
chiliweb
 
Florette’s BLASPHEMOUS CHILI
 
I can’t write about Florette without a recipe. This is the first of several Florette foods I’ll be featuring here. When we started asking friends and relatives what should be served at the party Saturday, “chili” was the invariable reply.
 
Florette fell in love with this recipe sometime in the 1980s and gave chili spice packets to friends and relatives for holiday presents for years after that. She also sold the packets to raise funds for her favorite charities. I am indebted to Elizabeth Pyle, who watched Florette put together the spices years ago and took notes, for the recipe.
 
Mixing the spices will make your house smell divine for days to come……….
 
For the spice mix:
 
Ingredients:
 
1/3 cup salt
1/2 cup cocoa (packed a little)
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons allspice
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons cumin (packed)
5 level tablespoons crushed chili (red pepper)
3 tablespoons oregano
 
Instructions:
 
Mix thoroughly and whirl in a food processor to break down the red pepper flakes and combine. Makes 16 batches of chili.
 
For the chili:
 
Ingredients:
 
4 cups chopped onion
2 cups chopped celery
6 large garlic cloves, minced
3 ounces vegetable oil
2 pounds lean ground chuck
2-1/2 tablespoons CHILI SPICES
1 28-ounce can peeled tomatoes
1 16-ounce can tomato sauce
2 or 3 cups beef or vegetable bouillon
2 cans (15 ounces each) red kidney beans
 
Instructions:
 
In a large stainless steel or enamelware kettle cook the onion, celery and garlic in oil over moderate heat, stirring, until the vegetables are wilted and soft.
 
In a separate skillet cook the ground chuck, breaking it up with a fork, until it is no longer pink. Remove any excess fat and add the meat to the vegetables.
 
Sprinkle the CHILI SPICES over the mixture. Add the tomatoes including the liquid, the tomato sauce, and the bouillon. Stir to blend the ingredients.
 
Simmer the mixture partially covered for one hour, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking to bottom of kettle. After 1/2 hour add rinsed and drained kidney beans.
 
Add salt and pepper if desired. Serves 10.
 
NOTES:

“Blasphemous” does not mean “extra hot.”For a “hotter” chili add a little crushed red chili pepper. For a milder chili add 2 or 3 cups of cooked spaghetti twists. The flavor improves with age and is best when chili is made ahead of serving time and reheated.
 
Liza Pyle, who loved Florette all her life, made packets of chili spices for the Florette party.
Liza Pyle, who loved Florette all her life, made packets of chili spices for the Florette party.
 
Follow-Up Note from Tinky in SEPTEMBER 2009:
 
Peter Beck, mentioned above, has put two posts about Florette on his own blog, Flaneur du Pays. One features a not-to-be-missed photograph of my neighbor and friend, Alice Parker Pyle, in a fixture of Florette’s home (as eccentric as she was herself), the soaking tub.

They are “Thinking About Florette” and “Florette Continued.” Do take a look!

And I also offer links to two other recipes that relate to Florette: Toni’s Salmon Mousse and Checkerboard Cherry Tomatoes.

Spring Break: Sunset in a Pie Pan

Sunday, April 26th, 2009
Dagny Johnson with her friend Vince Travaglini (labeled Christmas 1950)

Dagny Johnson with her friend Vince Travaglini (labeled Christmas 1950, courtesy of Eric Johnson)

Key lime pie is refreshingly delicious and may just be the easiest pie in the world to make. I love it not just because of its flavor and ease, however, but because it reminds me of a magical figure in my life.

Anna Dagny Johnson and my mother were college friends. Originally from the Midwest, Dody (as we called her) contracted polio on their junior year abroad in France. Eventually the Chicago winters proved too icy for a woman on crutches, and she and her family commissioned a Japanese architect to design a perfect little one-story house on Key Largo in Florida. Hidden away from the road, encircled by native foliage, the house looked out on the Gulf of Mexico.
Although she worked for several years as a labor lawyer (a career that brought her a lifelong hatred of J. Edgar Hoover), for most of her life Dagny lived off family money and followed her heart.
She adored Paris–its rhythm, its people, its look. For decades she spent Florida’s hot summers in the City of Light, shipping her specially fitted red Ford convertible across the Atlantic Ocean so that she could be mobile in France. I remember her driving me along the boulevards when I was seven. She put the car’s top down and made me repeat the mantra “Paris is the most beautiful city in the world” until it was imprinted in my psyche.
Dagny was always a lover of film. At Mount Holyoke in the 1930s she and future Connecticut governor Ella Grasso showed documentaries about the Spanish Civil War on campus. In the 1960s she hit upon the idea of programming a festival of films shot in or about Paris. “Paris en Films” (Paris on Film) ran for several summer seasons. My brother David, Dody’s nephew Eric, and I each worked for the festival for at least one summer.
I’ll never forget my first time there. Dody had rented an ornate apartment from a Spanish nobleman. She, Eric, and I shared the apartment at night. During the day a huge cast of characters joined us. These included Madame Garcia, a Spaniard who cooked tuna omelets(!) whenever Dody wanted to entertain someone important; Agnes, who wrote letters and answered the phone; Antoine, the aristocrat who was the figurehead president of Paris en Films (Dody did most of the work); and Monsieur Lamoureux, Dody’s hairdresser, who always arrived by walking directly into her bedroom via French doors.
We also encountered figures from the film world. Alberto Cavalcanti was one of the few film directors who enjoyed strong careers in three different countries. He took part in the experimental French film movement in the 1920s, made pictures for Britain’s Ealing Studios during World War II, and returned to his native Brazil after the war to make lavish color films. By the time we met him in Paris Alberto was very old and much too fond of a drink, but he still had wonderful stories to tell and an occasional twinkle in his eye. He adored Dody. He left her his papers, which Eric donated to the British Film Institute after her death.
The festival’s films were shown outdoors that summer in the garden of the Hôtel de Sully, a historic home in Paris. Eric showed typical American organizational talent and helped transport and project the films. I was never quite sure what my role was—a little ticket taking, a little translation (since my French was pretty good at the time), a little shopping.
The festival, like Dagny herself, was always in lukewarm water financially; there were certain restaurants and hotels to which we could never return because it—or she—owed them money. Nevertheless, we somehow managed to show interesting films every night, from the experimental work of Chris Marker and Stan Brakhage to early footage by the Lumière brothers and Thomas Edison’s operatives, from “The Red Balloon” to a silent Hollywood film starring Adolph Menjou. Dody was named a chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. She was one of few Americans to receive this honor.
Eric and I were too busy running around Paris to notice what a great time we were having. Whenever we meet or write today, we exchange Humphrey Bogart’s signature line, “We’ll always have Paris.” We laugh as we say it, but it’s also true. Somehow without my realizing it our time there became one of the highlights of my youth.
 
Left to right: Agnes, Dagny, Tinky, and Eric in Paris

Left to right: Agnes, Dagny, Tinky, and Eric in Paris

After Paris, Dagny’s other great love was the preservation of the Florida Keys. She used all her strength of character (and much of her remaining strength of body) to combat rampant development and preserve the native flora and fauna of her beloved home. She is appropriately the first figure profiled in Susan Nugent’s book Women Conserving the Florida Keys.

None of what I’ve written so far conveys the exhilarating (and sometimes maddening) experience of being with Dagny. She had passion for–and a strong opinion about–everyone and everything she encountered. Her pronouncements were never simple statements; each sentence was filled with capital letters and ended with an exclamation mark. Each vista she looked at, each mouthful she ate, was THE MOST WONDERFUL EVER!!!—something to be savored and shared with friends.
One of her great joys was the view she saw daily from her little house on Key Largo. Each afternoon she turned her sights and those of her guests to the coming sunset. She argued it was best enjoyed sipping a cocktail or nibbling on a refreshing piece of key-lime pie. We were told to linger over the sunsets; no one could stop watching until the first star came out.
Like Dody herself those sunsets over the bay were colorful and dramatic. Like her they imposed their rhythm on those who came near them: they forced us to slow down and adapt to their pace. And they were always worth the trouble it took to drop whatever we were doing and yield to their appeal.
Dagny Johnson died in 2003.  She has a couple of memorials. A hammock park on Key Largo is dedicated to the memory of her efforts to save the fragile Floridian ecosystem. Appropriately, it is located at the site of one of her greatest victories in that struggle. The large arch that marks its entry was supposed to be the gateway to Port Bougainville, an oversized development she helped to avert.
Dody also has a cinematic legacy, the 1939 film Love Affair. After she contracted polio in France she and her wonderful, funny mother sailed back to the United States. On the boat they met director Leo McCarey and his wife. McCarey was so inspired by the charming, gallant crippled girl he had met on board that he created a plot that (very loosely) combined shipboard romance and loss of mobility.
The film was remade as An Affair to Remember in 1957. The films’ plots (which are identical) are creaky, but they are among the most romantic movies ever made. I think of Dody whenever I watch either version (or even the weird 1994 re-remake).
I also think of her when I make or eat any of her culinary passions—a fresh orange or avocado, a dish of crème brulé, a croque monsieur, or a cool slice of key lime pie. As the pie slides down my throat I sit once again by the Gulf of Mexico. I hear Dody rattle on about Paris and religion and the Florida Keys. And the lush yet delicate Key Largo sunset washes over me.

key-lime-pieweb

Key Largo Key Lime Pie

As in the key-lime chicken recipe below, do not substitute Persian lime juice for key lime juice here. And don’t worry that your key lime pie isn’t green (or add food coloring to make it so). Key limes are yellow, and your pie will be naturally tinted a very pale shade of that color.
According to the web site of Nellie & Joe’s, the company that makes the key-lime juice and recipe I use, classic key-lime pies are not baked (a plus in the Florida heat!). The lime juice is alleged to cook the egg yolks. Here in the north, however, I usually bake my pie. Some folks like to use the leftover egg whites to make a meringue topping for their pie and eschew the whipped cream. I much prefer whipped cream for texture and flavor.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup key-lime juice
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks (use the whites in another recipe; you won’t need them here)
1 8-inch pie shell with a graham-cracker crust (preferably homemade)
whipped cream as needed

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl whisk together the juice, condensed milk, and egg yolks until they are smooth. Pour this mixture into your pie shell, and place the pie in the oven. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
The pie won’t necessarily set, but you don’t need it to!
After removing the pie from the oven let it cool to room temperature; then cover it and place it in the freezer until a few minutes before you are ready to eat. Remove the pie from the freezer, adorn it with whipped cream (either all the way across the top or just around the edges, depending on how much additional fat you want to absorb!), and serve. If you have leftover pie, store it, covered, in the refrigerator. Serves 6 to 8.
 
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Father Abraham

Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Abraham Melvin Weisblat (circa 1990)

Abraham Melvin Weisblat (circa 1990)

I’m a big fan of the 16th president of the United States.

Abe Lincoln has plenty of people to sing his praises today on his 200th birthday, however, so I’m going to write instead about another Abraham born on February 12. My father, who died in 1998, would have turned 90 today.
 
When I was small I assumed that my father was a namesake of the more famous Abe who shared his birthday. As I grew older I learned that this was unlikely since OUR Abe was born in the spa town of Ciechocinek, Poland.
 
His family came to the United States when he was less than two years old. According to archival information at Ellis Island, the Weisblats arrived on the Holland-America Line ship the Nieuw Amsterdam on December 20, 1920. So the first name was a coincidence—one that made it easy to remember my father’s birthday.
 

nayes1

 
My father was the first member (of many) in his family to go to college. Earning a Ph.D. in agricultural economics, he had an eclectic career in the foundation world. We lived overseas a lot. When we lived in the United States, I loved to visit his offices in Rockefeller Center. They seemed ideal places in which to work. He always had art on the walls. He always had pleasant people to talk to down the hall (mostly women; my father loved women). He always had a couch for visiting and napping. And he always had a spectacular view.
 
When people asked the teenage me what Abe Weisblat did for a living, I usually said that he talked on the telephone. That was all I ever saw him do. As I got older, I realized that his lengthy conversations on the phone constituted hard and effective work. He had a knack for getting people to listen to each other, for explaining the work and point of view of one person to another person with different training and/or nationality.
 
He loved his work, and that example has been a challenge for his children. My brother who likes but doesn’t really adore his career tends to be ambivalent about the whole idea of working, wondering perhaps why he doesn’t get the same kind of satisfaction my father did from his labors. I love my work but make very little money from it. I’m reluctant to find something different and more lucrative do to, however, since my father taught me that work is supposed to be fulfilling.
 
His marriage provided an equally difficult example to live up to. He and my mother were an ideal couple. They were smart, knowledgeable, loving, and charming in completely different ways. They always respected each others’ talents, although they didn’t always agree. My father used to say that always agreeing with someone would be boring. Their life together was never boring.
 
Beyond the family my father also shone. He was simply wonderful with people. He had an interest in just about everyone he met, and he loved to mentor younger professionals in the foundation world and in academia. He never felt jealous of anyone else for an instant.
 
One evening at Singing Brook Farm a group of us were discussing the play The Trip to Bountiful, in which an elderly woman is obsessed with returning to the childhood home in which she remembers being happy. We each took turns identifying our own Bountiful, our special place that represented home and security and happy memories. When my father’s turn came, he explained that his home wasn’t geographic. It was people. And many of them were in the room with him. What a gift!
 
My father seldom cooked so I don’t have a lot of recipes to share from him. His favorite meal when he was alone (which wasn’t very often) was a jar of pickled herring, a martini, and some matzo. He liked to boast that he only needed one fork for this repast since he could use the same one for the martini olive and the herring!
 
For company he did occasionally like to put together a salad of lettuce, oranges, and red onions. (He usually got someone else to wash the lettuce and slice the oranges and onions!) Here is my adaptation of that recipe. He usually tossed it with a classic French vinaigrette, but I like to make it with my maple balsamic salad dressing. Enjoy making and eating it—and think of a father, mother, or grandmother whose birthday is near. Let’s wish them all a happy birthday and cherish their presence or their memory.
 
If you enjoy this post, please consider taking out a free e-mail subscription to my blog! The form is at the top right of the main page. Meanwhile, here is the recipe………
 
 
saladweb2
 
Uncle Abe’s Orange and Onion Salad (with a little twist from Tinky)
 
Ingredients:
 
half a head of Boston lettuce (more if the head is very small)
1 orange, peeled and sliced thinly
1/3 red onion, peeled and sliced thinly
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/2 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
 
Instructions:
 
Break up the lettuce with your fingers. Place it in a salad bowl with the orange and onion slices.
 
In a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the vinegar, syrup, garlic, mustard, water, salt, and pepper. Shake thoroughly. Add the oil, and shake again. Pour a third to half of the vinaigrette over the salad, and toss well. Add a little more if you think you need it. (Leftover vinaigrette may be stored in the refrigerator for up to a month; just be sure to bring it to room temperature and shake it again before using it).
 
Serves 4.
I didn't actually slice everything as thinly as I should have--but I hope you get the idea!

I didn't actually slice everything as thinly as I should have--but I hope you get the idea!