The Last Supper Festival: Nearly Here

If you're in New York (or the area) on September 26th, check out The Last Supper Festival at 3rd Ward (195 Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn), from 6pm to 2am. It's a multimedia, multisensory feast, nourishing your visceral and intellectual appetites! Proceeds from the Festival go to the Food Bank for New York.

The Last Supper Festival: Get your Tix

13 Short Films, 13 Artworks, 13 Dishes, 7 Bands & DJs

The Last Supper Film Festival is an indoor-outdoor film, food, music and art festival occuring in Williamsburg, Brooklyn during the crux of seasonal change at the end of September. Referencing the celebratory nature of the feast, and the symposium of genres, the festival kindles the creative miasma sparked by NY’s peppery fall and inventive community. The last exposure to outdoor interaction before the shearing winter, The Last Supper uncovers the cornucopia of creative genres in our backyard, and creates an atmosphere for open dialogue and collaboration between the mediums. 13 short films from emerging directors, 13 artworks from budding artists, 13 dishes from brilliant culinarians, and Music from several local bands and djs will grace the dinner table at a venue in Brooklyn.

Proceeds go to Food Bank for New York.



September 26, 2009 / 6p-2a
3rd Ward / 195 Morgan Ave, Bushwick, Bklyn
Admission $10 with donation of 3 canned goods OR $15 (sans cans)

Black Beans, Bacon, and Bartering

This Black Bean Soup recipe actually reminds me of two things, both delightful: one past, one present. Cynda, my sister, and I used to be obsessed with bean and bacon soup, I think mostly because we liked to say "bean and bacon" loudly. We'd also get the giggle fits so hard I would pee my pants playing Star Wars Monopoly: word. Remembering that made this chili-alternative even more fun to make.

Secondly, last weekend's Domestic Labor Dinner got me thinking about bartering. We begged, borrowed, and bartered for just about everything for the event, from the space itself to the produce we served. So, when I needed someone to hook up my roommate's telly, I thought: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." My friend Andrew is excellent at A/V-itude; whereas my time is better spent in the kitchen. By night's end, my A/V is such that we can watch VHS tapes and listen to CDs (stuck in circa 1995, when Cynda and I were having our best giggle parties) and our tummies were stuffed. Yay!

On the menu: Black Bean Soup (with Bacon), grilled cheese sandwiches, and apple galette.

Black Bean Soup
Taste the Rainbow
1 lb dried black beans (2 c): rinsed, soaked in 4 quarts water overnight or for 6 hours
1 lb smoked ham hock or shank (I used 1 lb bacon)
2 bay leaves
5 c water
1/8 teas baking soda (helps the beans retain the color)
1/2 teas salt
4 Tbls olive oil
1 lg onion (chopped)
1 med sweet potato, chopped into 1/2 pieces
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1/2 teas salt
4 med garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbls ground cumin
1 teas chili powder
2 c chicken stock
1 Tbls molasses
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3-4 Tbls fresh lime juice (or lemon)
salt

Garnish: chopped fresh cilantro, sour cream, avocado (peeled and chopped)

Cook bacon, drain bacon fat. Add 1/4 lb of cooked bacon to beans in 4-qt, thick-bottomed pot. Add 5 c water, bay leaves, salt and baking soda. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low simmer. Cover and let cook 75-90 min, til beans are tender. Remove bay leaves. Bacon will be black (ignore this).

Heat olive oil in large 8-qt, thick bottomed pot on med-high until the oil is hot, but not smoking. Add onions, celery, sweet potato, carrot and 1/2 teas salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned (about 10-15 min). Reduce heat to medium, add the cumin, chili powder, and garlic. Cook for 2 min, stirring constantly.



Add the beans, their cooking liquid, chicken stock, molasses, and bell pepper. I threw some green pepper too. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally for 20-30 min.



Remove 4 cups of soup (about half) to a blender. Puree til smooth and return to the pot of soup. Add the remainder of the 1 lb of bacon. I also added corn sliced fresh from the cob. Add 3-4 Tbls lime juice. Let cook long enough for the corn to be tender.



Apple Galette
I've said it before and I'll say it again: sometimes fancy French titles make something simple seem (needlessly) fancier and more complicated. I prefer to think of galette as peasant pie, because it's so simple and rustically wholesome.

Filling:
Preheat oven to 400. Prepare the apples. I prefer tart (granny smith, cortland, mcintosh, paula red). You can peel or leave the skins on. Most importantly, quarter them, remove the seeds and slice them evenly. I think I did this to 5-6 apples. I didn't measure the resulting quantity. Place sliced apples in bowl. Add a 3-4 Tbls all-purpose flour, 1/4 c sugar, and cinnamon to taste. Stir to coat.



Galette Pastry:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 t. salt
1/2 cup chilled butter, cut into pieces (one stick)
3 tablespoons ice water

Whisk to combine flour and salt in bowl. Add chunks of butter. Use your hands to incorporate until it resembles a coarse meal, wherein the largest butter pieces are the size of peas. Add the water one Tbls at a time; mix with wooden spoon. It will start to clump together.

Dump the flour mixture onto a floured table. Gather it together and form a disk. You can refrigerate (wrap the dough in plastic) or roll out immediately.

Roll dough in large circle, until about 1/8" thick. Add flour underneath dough and to the rolling pin, whenever needed.

Wrap dough around rolling pin and transfer to sheet pan. Dump apple mixture into the center; spread them evenly around the center of the dough. Fold dough over the apples, making sure it overlaps itself, but doesn't cover the apples entirely. Seal any holes and cracks so the juices don't escape while baking.

Using an egg wash (one beaten egg, plus some water), brush the surface of the pastry.
Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. It will be amazing. Uncooked version below. Please see first photo (top) for finished--and delicious--product.

Good Food: What does love taste like?

Baking makes the world better; so does my friend Dave*. Yesterday, I made double chocolate cupcakes (chocolate, with chocolate chips) for today's 'Mommy and Me' workshop at a domestic violence shelter that serves women with disabilities (some caused by trauma and domestic violence) and their children. Around the table, women sat next to their children, all smiles, as they smelled the buttercream icing, which had been divided evenly among the bowls before them. We began with a story Dave wrote. Each of us, kids included, read a short section. When we finished, the kids dyed the icing and we began decorating. Lovingly, mothers presented cupcakes to their children and vice versa. Sticky fingers embraced. We joyfully finished with sprinkles, smiles, and cupcake moustaches.

Here's the story, with Dave's permission:

Once there was a little girl. She had the loveliest singing voice. She would sing and people would smile and relax, and every day she sang would be like a holiday. On her 8th birthday, she caught a cold and her singing voice was never the same again. This made everyone in her town sad. The townspeople didn't know what to do without their happy voice. The girl became very sad because she would love being able to cheer up the people with her talented voice. She started crying one day and when her mother heard her, her mother started crying. Then the whole village started crying. Everyone except for her grandma. Her grandma took her to the side and told her that she was going to teach her the secret to making everyone happy again. The grandma told the little girl to go to sleep early and sneak out to the kitchen after midnight. The little girl choked back her tears and agreed.

The little girl came to the kitchen in her pajamas and her grandma wrapped her up in an apron. The little girl asked what they were going to do. The grandma told her to stop asking questions and get to work. The grandma put the little girl's hands to work sifting flour, pouring sugar, cracking eggs, shredding lemon peels. Before the little girl could realize what she was doing, she was covered; her face was white with flour and her hands were sticky with eggs. Then her grandma turned on the oven and gave the girl cream cheese and milk and colored food dyes, sprinkles and colored sugar crystals, even gummy dinosaurs. The grandma filled trays with the batter, and as the oven was opening one hundred beautiful cupcakes were in the little girl's sight. The grandma told the girl that she had to go and that the girl needed to get to work. The little girl said, "No. I don't know what to do." Her grandmother said, "Yes, you do, sweetheart, you always did."

The little girl cried and banged on the table. She knocked over some frosting and sprinkles and looked down. All of the cupcake decorations made the top of a cupcake look just like a sunflower. The little girl stopped crying and said, "That can't happen again." She hit the table and BAM! another cupcake was decorated; this time it looked like the face of clock. She started working harder; the cupcakes looked like panda bears, roses, eyes, jewels, the sun, rainbows, even little baby faces.

Soon the sun started coming up and the little girl ran down the hall to her mother's room, screaming "Mommy! Mommy! Look what I made for you!" carrying the most beautiful red rose cupcake. Her mother wasn't in her bed. She wasn't anywhere to be found. The little girl heard a stir from the bathroom. Her mother came out wearing a bathrobe, her eyes were drawn and blue she looked so tired. The little girl passed the cupcake to her mother whose face brightened up when she saw the cupcake; her smile turned bright red, her eyes opened and she hugged the little girl who had a gigantic smile on her face.

The little girl put the cupcakes in the front window for all to see. The townspeople cheered and she even heard one man say "Those cupcakes smell like a a beautiful song." The little girl saw her mother's bathrobe and saw a little white powder and asked, "Mommy, what's that spot?" The mother pulled the robe to the side and said, "Nothing, sweetheart, I think we both know a very sweet way to say 'I love you.'"


The story, and today's session, remind me of why I love baking. Homemade sweets, especially colorful cupcakes, bring smiles like April showers bring May flowers. I dare you to give a cupcake the stink-eye. When I bake, I don't think or worry. I just love...and stir. It's magic.

*My friend Dave is admirable and awesome and - he would say - ordinary. Please see photo below. Even when I'm at my very best (caring, thoughtful, generous of spirit/time/energy, and kind), I approximate Dave at what I imagine to be his worst. He lives to make others' lives better, and he regularly--without fuss or attention--succeeds.

Good Food: The Last Supper

"Somewhere between a classroom and a disco."

My friend Coralina, who has recently allowed me to become co-conspirator, created The Last Supper Salon five years ago. What started as creative folks sharing art, film, music, and conversation over a homemade feast has blossomed into an annual event with an ever-increasing audience; last year's was somewhere between 600 and 800 people. This year's theme, as it is on everyone's minds, is "means." Artists (some using food as medium), musicians, and filmmakers will present their work at 3rd Ward (in Brooklyn) on September 26th. For more information, please see the website: The Last Supper Festival We hope you'll join us!



As director/manager of the Fundraiser, I'd originally been interested in domesticity, gendered labor and gendered space, the body, and value. Further contemplation (and a resurgence of my fixation on the WPA) resulted in the following meditation on rustic living:

Drawing inspiration from past periods of economic hardship, the Domestic Labor Dinner + Dance Hoedown celebrates simple pleasures and simple measures: the fruits and labors of local artists, farmers, craftspeople, musicians, djs, filmmakers, and writers. With earnest appreciation, we turn to the local-pastoral in order to revisit the past and re-imagine the future. Please join us in conversations about labor, value, and alternative economies of means, while enjoying a farm feast inspired by the Food Files and Films of the WPA.*



The event will feature canning demonstrations and clips from WPA films about conservation, rationing, and sustainable food practices, toe-tapping tunes, and a delicious farmhouse dinner prepared by Lila Dobbs.



*Shout out to John Mattioli for those years spent living frugally: finding sustenance in conversations about alternative means and economies.

Grandpas are Nice*: Toasted Walnut Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

*Or what happens when you Google "oatmeal, butterscotch, walnut"

I have a thing for old men: grumpy, dirty, or otherwise. Butterscotch reminds me of them and, more specifically, grandfathers. I've been lucky enough to have 4, though I've only known 3 (my paternal grandfather died when Dad was 17, but that's a story for another time).

My maternal grandfather was a barrel-chested, tall, jolly sort. When not in the yard making slip-and-slides out of tarp and cinder blocks for his older grandchildren, he was in the woodshop making toys for the younger ones. Though he bore no physical resemblance to one, I will always associate him with the Muppets; he often fell asleep on the living room floor--feet up on the davenport--while watching Sesame Street. I used to do my homework in the kitchen; his snoring adding a little something to the sing-a-longs. I think he smelled like butterscotch.

Grandpa Bob, my stepmom's dad, was similarly jovial and kind. And better still, generous with the butterscotch candies he kept in his pants-pocket.

Dick married my paternal grandmother before I was born. He had a tough act to follow and though we always knew he was not our "real" grandfather, he surely acted the part: silly jokes, awkward tickles, stories about nothing. A kindly chap who liked a bit of cribbage and a bit of booze. Nothing wrong with that.


Toasted Walnut Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
*1 c all purp flour
*1 teas baking powder
*3/8 teas baking soda
*1/2 teas salt
*3/8 teas grated nutmeg
*Tiny pinch teaspoon allspice
*8 T butter, room temperature
*1/2 c brown sugar, packed
*1/4 c gran sugar
*1 egg
*1 1/4 teas vanilla
*3/4 c rolled oats
*1 c butterscotch chips
*1/3 c chopped walnuts, toasted and cooled
*1/2 c coconut

*I doubled the recipe and added toasted coconut. To toast the walnuts and coconut, set oven to 400F. Spread walnuts and coconut on pan with 1+" sides. Bake for 5 minutes, check, stir, etc. You want the coconut brown, but not too dark. Let cool before adding to cookie dough.

-Preheat oven to 375F.
-In small-medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, salt, and allspice.
-In mixing bowl, beat butter on HIGH 'til smooth. Add brown sugar, beat until incorporated before adding granulated sugar. Beat 'til combined. Add egg, then vanilla.
-Add the flour in two additions, beating on LOW-MED each time, until combined. Scrape the bowl with spatula.
-Add oats, then butterscotch chips, and toasted walnuts and coconut.


-Drop on cookie sheet, 3" apart.
-Bake for 9-12 minutes, or until brown on the edges.

The finished cookie, both salty and sweet, was washed down with a glass of milk. It was almost as good as the best awkward tickle/hug my grandpas ever gave me. Definitely as good as, or better than, a Werther's.

Drool Variations: Lemon Sandwich Cookies, Version 1

Lemon Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

To celebrate all things summer, including my homecoming, my family decided to get together and gluttonously gorge on all things Wisco: brats, pasta salad, corn on the cob, fresh blackcaps atop ice cream, milk, beer, cheese, etc. This was to make sure I gained my winter weight, to show what NY lacks, and to remind me that home is only a short plane, train, or tractor ride away. It was a delicious and successful feast! My contribution is below.

I like lemon. A lot. Because I hadn't *yet* posted my Lemon Sandwich Cookie recipe (sorry Caroline!), I had to scrounge the internet for one to make for the family. Lo and behold, I found Martha Stewart's. It's a good thing.


Martha Stewart's Lemon Sandwich Cookie
*2 sticks butter, softened
*1 c powdered sugar
*1 T grated lemon zest (approx 1 lemon)
*1/2 teas salt
*2 c all purp flour (plus more for rolling)
*2 T gran sugar, for sprinkling
*Creamy Lemon Filling

--Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat on HIGH, in large bowl, butter, powdered sugar, lemon zest and salt 'til combined. On LOW, add flour. Finish with wooden spoon; dough will be stiff.
--Place dough on piece of plastic wrap. Shape into disk about 1/2" thick. Wrap, chill for 1 hour, 'til firm.
--Unwrap dough. Place on lightly floured surface. With lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough to 1/8" thick.
--Cut cookies with 1 1/2" round cutter. I used a shot class). Reroll scraps, chilling if necessary. Place 1" apart on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake 'til beginning to brown; 12-15 minutes. Transfer to wire rack.
--Using CREAMY LEMON FILLING (see below) make sandwiches, sugared sides facing out. Gently squeeze.

Creamy Lemon Filling
* 1-4oz pkg cream cheese, room temperature
* 1 T finely grated lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
* 1 to 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

--Mix cream cheese and zest until smooth, in small bowl. Slowly add 1 c powdered sugar, mixing 'til smooth. Desired texture: firm, yet spreadable. I also added a little big of lemon juice.

Though my family liked them, I thought the texture was too delicate (because of the powdered sugar and lack of eggs in the dough) and the flavor too cream cheesy. I like more lemony snisket.


Shout Out: New Glarus Brewing Company's Dancing Man Wheat beer: yum! Though I don't think the cinnamon would pair well with the eating of the cookie, the beer was nice accompaniment to the baking of the cookie.