Poetry & Pushpins

~ The Writings of S.L. Woodford

Poetry & Pushpins

Tag Archives: cooking

Jello Molds and Midwestern Womanhood

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Cooking, Feminism, Philosophy of Cooking

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cooking, Midwest

I made my first jello mold over the weekend. And it was beautiful: a strawberry gelatin filled with fresh blueberries and elegantly rounded by a 1950s bundt pan. In forty minutes, the gel, whose main ingredient was xanthan gum, (believe me, no horses were harmed in the making of this chilled salad) congealed and agreeably slipped out of the metal pan and onto a waiting china plate (English, of course).

There it was, in all its scalloped glory, free from the confines of the bundt pan, gently wobbling on my kitchen table. Watching it dulcetly wiggle gave me an odd feeling—though this was the first time I’ve made a jello mold, this crafting of gelatin salads is a tradition much older than me. It is a foodstuff straight out of my Midwestern childhood. Molded salads, made by my mother and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, wriggled through my recollection of every family dinner. The women of my family served jello molds on china plates and out of sensible plastic Tupperware. They used colorful powders, tasting of strawberries, cherries, and limes, to flavor the base, and filled each wobbly delight with canned fruit, Cool Whip (giving the gel a mysterious cloudy color), and sometimes, marshmallows.

This molded dish signified comfortable wealth in my family, especially for my great-grandmothers and their mothers. To present your guests with a gelatin salad meant that your husband made enough money to purchase a sizeable icebox, and then a refrigerator,when those became popular at the turn of the century. And for my grandmothers and mother, it represented an unofficial passage into womanhood. If you made a jello mold, it signified that you were having dinner parties, which meant that you were a hostess, a married woman, a wife, a mother.

Maybe that’s why staring at the mold gave me such an odd feeling. Making a jello mold signified Midwestern Womanhood, and the only marker of that state I currently display is that of a hostess. Perhaps my subconscious, shaped by Midwestern upper-middle class values, got really confused. What was I doing? How dare I make my first jello mold without a ring on my left hand and children running about! I was clearly messing with the order of things. This is simply not how it’s done.

But, if I bewildered my subconscious, my immediate cognitive thought patterns didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they were elated. Here I was, admiring my first jello mold, which I got to make on my own terms. I earn enough money, doing things that I love to do, to afford a refrigerator. I host parties and extend hospitality at my discretion. And, I didn’t have to wait for a husband and children to mold me into an adult woman. I have the wonderful and scary privilege of doing that on my own, accompanied by beloveds of my choosing, who see me as a library director, a writer, and a reasonably lovely person, not just as a body who will run one’s household and have one’s children and fit a certain beauty aesthetic.

I reach out and gently poke the jello mold. It dances beneath my touch. I roll my eyes. We sometimes see ourselves in the strangest of things, and now I see myself in this round of strawberry gel. Our pasts were molded by unyielding shapes that confined and controlled, but, we both have willingly slipped away from those molds. Though our past structures still give us our basic form, we take that form and move it, wriggle it, just as we like. And that wriggling is glorious. It gives life. It gives permission to do things differently—-like making your first jello mold whenever you bloody well want to.

Advertisement

English Fusion Cooking: Golden Raisin and Black Currant Scones

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Cooking, Philosophy of Cooking, Pushpins (Daily Life)

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cooking, England

It is finally cold outside. The heat is on, the electric blanket out, and the oven warm. This weekend, my roommate and I took turns using our oven to bake various things, both savory and sweet. She made her first apple pie of the year, and I made my first fall scones. They also happened to be the most epic scones I’ve ever made. Who knew that cinnamon, homemade rye-rum vanilla, golden raisins, and black currents was such a winning combination? And believe me, it totally is.

Making such scones allows me to revel in one of my favorite cooking styles: English Fusion Cooking. Traditionally, English cooking is pretty simple. All the food groups are there and are usually covered with copious amounts of butter or brown sauce. Though simple, I love to take these recipes and lace them with elegant surprises–like white truffle oil in the mashed potato portion of a Shepherd’s pie made from lamb, Portobello mushrooms, and leek. Or, adding a dash of cinnamon and homemade vanilla extract to a solid scone recipe. It’s unpretentious food with quiet glimmers of sophistication and creativity. Food you cannot really know until you tasted it, spent an evening with it, with your dearest friends.

Golden Raisin and Black Currant Scones:

1 cup of bread flour

1 cup of oat flour

1/4 cup of sugar (or much less to taste)

3/4 teaspoon of salt

2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2-1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 cup of chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces

1/2 cup of Golden Raisins

1/4 cup of Black Currants

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (I suggest you that make your own and use Angel’s Envy rye whiskey, which has been aged in rum casks, as the base for this extract)

2/3 cup of buttermilk, or plain yoghurt thinned to buttermilk consistency with filtered water

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Sift together all dry ingredients and cinnamon in a large bowel (or just dump them into said bowl if you are feeling slightly lazy / simply haven’t the time). Cut butter into mixture with two knives, or a pastry cutter, until the butter pieces are the size of small peas. Stir in golden raisins and currants. Add egg, vanilla extract, and buttermilk to mixture. Stir until just mixed.

Spray a large baking sheet with vegetable oil cooking spray and drop scone batter by the heaping tablespoonful onto the baking sheet, 2 inches apart, making 10 scones. Bake 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and serve with clotted cream, marmalade, butter, or your favorite jelly preserve.

Homemade Vanilla Extract:

1 cup of bourbon, rum, rye whisky aged in rum casks, or vodka

5-8 vanilla beans

Instructions:

Place alcohol in a clean glass jar with a cork. On a cutting board, split vanilla beans open lengthwise, exposing seeds, then add to the alcohol. Cork bottle and store in a cool dry place for three weeks, shaking it each week. For the most intense flavor, store the mixture for six months before using.

IMG_0099.JPG

Making Hummus: Something New, Something Old

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Cooking, Philosophy of Cooking, Pushpins (Daily Life)

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cooking, favorite recipes

This weekend, I totally had my mind blown in the kitchen. It wasn’t due to the discovery of a new recipe, but to the enhancement of an old one.

I’ve been making hummus for at least five years now and the process doesn’t hold much variation. I soak the chickpeas overnight, cook them for a few hours the next day, add minced garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, tahini, cumin, salt, pepper…

…And am thoroughly disappointed with the results.

My hummus always tastes flat. Its flavors, light and acidic, never seem to have any grounding. But that was all changed last weekend when I added a 1/2 a cup of plain Greek yoghurt to the mix—a offhanded suggestion I noticed in the comments section of a recipe blog. Gosh, did that 1/2 a cup of plain Greek yoghurt make a difference! Its tangy but creamy flavor finally gave my hummus a decent base on which all the other flavors could both rest and be complimented by.

And for the first time in five years, I was not disappointed with the results.

It’s funny how something so small and simple can make a difference, how a subtle change has the power to be not so subtle. For me, such knowledge is marvelous. In cooking and in life, new recipes and new situations will totally blow our minds. They should, we’ve never encountered them before. But, it’s nice to know that the tiny things can also make a huge impact. Alter one ingredient or one life choice, and you get something new out of something familiar. There is magic in that.

My Hummus Recipe:

2 cups of cooked chickpeas, cooking water reserved

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup of virgin olive oil

1/2 cup of Greek yoghurt (or, 1/4 cup of yoghurt and 1/4 cup of tahini)

1 teaspoon of cumin (or, to taste. Sometimes, I have 1 tablespoon days of cumin)

Sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste

A few sprigs of parsley, chopped

Instructions:

Blend cooked chickpeas with a blender, adding a little cooking water to make a paste. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Adjust spices and lemon juice to taste, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve with vegetables, pita chips, or wheat soda bread.

photo(2)

Mashed Memories

11 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Philosophy of Cooking, Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cooking, England, the creative process

Outside my closed window, snow falls to the ground—swirling out over green grass and brown, shriveled leaves, drifting into soft, fluffy piles. A similar scene is occurring in my apartment. Inside the warmth of an oven-heated kitchen, stiff white peaks swirl and form as I stir milk into a pot of mashed potatoes. A few feet away sits a dish, full of browned meat, dotted with the yellows and oranges and greens of winter squash and broccoli. It patiently waits for the peaks in the bowl to fall out and drift over its textured top.

In the solitude of my winter kitchen, I am making Shepherd’s pie.

I first encountered Shepherd’s pie on a college exchange program in London. Along with a book and a beer, it would accompany my late afternoon pub study sessions. There, its meat was adorned with carrots, peas, and corn—vegetables bought from the frozen section of the local Sainsbury’s. When my months in England finished, the recipe came back with me over the Atlantic. I made it all the time as a graduate student in New England. Once, I prepared it for Easter dinner, replacing carrots, peas, and corn with lamb, leeks, and mushrooms. As the soft, spring air seeped in through an open kitchen window, I stirred milk into a pot of mashed potatoes as two dear friends sat at the kitchen table, cutting leaks and mushrooms. After I emptied the pot’s contents, they asked if they could have it. I gave them the pot, and, with spoons in hand they began to scrape it clean, turning a pair of thirty-year-olds back into children.

Inside the warmth of an oven-heated kitchen, stiff white peaks swirl and form as I stir milk into a pot of mashed potatoes.

No soft spring air seeps in through my current kitchen window. Outside, snow still falls to the ground—swirling out over green grass and brown, shriveled leaves. In my silent kitchen, I am far from an English pub and I am far from my friends.

But, the Shepherd’s pie I now make draws their memory close.

20131211-113005.jpg

Recent Posts

  • The Natural Sequel of an Unnatural Beginning
  • Late Summer Spiders
  • Hawks and Walks
  • Process Learning and Pavement
  • Saying Goodbye to Terry Pratchett

Archives

  • September 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013

The Cloud of Unknowing: Tags

Advent Anne Elliot is the best books botany Bronte bashing Burberry Women C.S. Lewis Captain Wentworth Chanel No. 5 Charleston Christian community churches community contra dancing cooking countryside cozy apartment empathy England favorite recipes fiction folk songs friendship gardening grief hawks Henry Tilney Highland Schottishe history human nature Ireland Jane Austen laundry adventures learning patience Lent librarians libraries making mistakes Midwest MIss Fisher Mr. Selfridge Neil Gaiman New England New Haven New Year New York PBS Dramas poetry resiliency Rowan Williams running spiders technology Terry Pratchett the creative process Toupee von Pear vintage fashion World Cup writing

Amazing Writers

  • BeyondWhy.org
  • Daisy C. Abreu
  • Jenny Blair, Freelance Writer
  • Kimberly B. George. Feminst. Writer. Bridge Builder.
  • The Local Yockel

Creators of Beauty: Art & Music

  • Elisa Berry Fonseca
  • Ordinary Time
  • Stella Maria Baer
  • Tawnie Olson, Composer

Publications

  • Hartford Faith & Values
  • Lillian Goes Vintage: The Tumbler
  • The Living Church
  • The Vincent Librarian's Blog
  • Young Raven's Literary Review

Sites of Whimsy

  • Ask the Past: Advice from Old Books
  • The Productive Librarian
Follow Poetry & Pushpins on WordPress.com

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Poetry & Pushpins
    • Join 60 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Poetry & Pushpins
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...