Saturday, March 26, 2016

It's a Pistachio World

I can't make Jell-O.

I know that's a pretty shocking statement from a woman who makes homemade marshmallows and a cake that takes three days to make and includes making fresh orange curd (I only make this cake every 10 years). I use gelatin when making marshmallows so it's not like I can't use a Jell-O adjacent product successfully. I think my failure with Jell-O is twofold: 1. My water isn't the right temperature and 2. I don't dissolve the packet enough. Yes, these are simple things that can easily be addressed but since I don't really like Jell-O, my inability to make Jell-O doesn't matter. Good thing I wasn't in my mid-ish 30s in any year from roughly 1952-1973; my inability to make Jell-O would count towards my failures as a woman. No children, no husband, can't make a Jell-O salad - I'd be doomed. Lucky for me I live in 2016 and no one judges me on these things. No really, no one judges me. (Insert sarcastic tone here - sarcasm really should have a punctuation mark.)

Fun Jell-O/gelatin facts*:
  • The first reference to geletine was in France in 1682 and involved beef bones. 
  • Jell-O pudding flavors have been around since the 1930s, not the 1970s as most people believe.
  • The person who actually created what we all know and "love" as Jell-O was an unsuccessful cough syrup salesman and he was equally unsuccessful with Jell-O. He sold the product to his neighbor for $450 and that man, Orator Francis Woodward, would go on to make a success with the product.
I've come to terms with my lack of Jell-O making skills by focusing my baking skills on things that really matter: cakes and cookies. I have a pretty solid repertoire of classics like chocolate chip cookies, cutout cookies, chocolate and vanilla cakes, Guinness cupcakes, and the best banana bread of all time to keep everyone happy and sugared up. I like to add in new things now and then to keep things interesting (the Creamsicle cake went over very well this past summer). My co-workers tend to be the recipients of most of my creations and unless they're lying, I haven't made anything that they wouldn't want repeated. There's also some sort of "Erin bakes this" discussion going around the office; my new hires always seem to know about my baking before I meet them. Someone in the March group specifically asked about the peanut butter and jelly bars (popular with the support team). I guess having a reputation for baking delicious things isn't a bad thing.

Last month during my visit to Austin, I found a handwritten recipe/address book in a vintage store on S. Congress Street. It definitely belongs to a woman and is probably from the late 60s/early 70s. The faded, on the border of falling apart UT notebook is a mix of her own handwritten recipes and recipes from other people, either on index cards or random pieces of paper (like an invoice - one of my favorites). There are a few recipes that either came from a package (Knorr) or were cut from a box (the pistachio cake recipes). She stuffed them into pages in the notebook here and there. Some of the recipes have are crossed out with a large "X". Towards the back, the recipes abruptly stop and it's her address book, mostly addresses in Texas. Each one has a check mark next to it. I haven't decided if the marks and checks are part of a transfer system (maybe she got new books) or if the "X" means she didn't like the recipe and the check means she sent that person something. Maybe she was planning her wedding and this was actually the invitation list. Or a Christmas card list. There are endless possibilities. The best part? I'll never know. Other than the addresses, which belong to actual people, there are no identifying marks or notations in the notebook. She references the person who gave her a recipe in the first few pages but it's a notation like "Mrs. Gibson." Mrs. Gibson could be anyone.


This is the sort of thing I dream about finding in a thrift store. It's a little window into someone's life at a very specific time. Did she like any of the recipes in the book? Were any her go to recipes for parties or special occasions? The idea of Tomato Soup Cake makes me a little queasy but her recipe says to frost with chocolate or lemon icing so it can't be all that bad. Were any of the recipes handed down from her mother or her grandmother? Did she get together with other ladies on her street and trade recipes? Was pistachio pudding the cure-all of the early 1970s? Why were some recipes x-ed out and others were not? Why so many recipes including dates? It's all a mystery. A potentially delicious mystery.

When I came home from Austin I decided that I would work my way through as many of the recipes as I could make. A lot of the recipes call for oleo (margarine) and lard (not happening). Others are combinations I'm not totally sold on; the tomato soup cake falls into that group as does the beef and zucchini recipe. There's also one for sesame shrimp and asparagus; it reminds me of something a trendy single woman would make in a 1972 made for tv movie. There are  few recipes that aren't named so I'm not sure if it's a cake or brownie or something else entirely.


I started with two recipes that I thought would be easy and delicious: oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and pistachio swirl cake. My only concern was whether I'd be able to find pistachio pudding but my trusty local Giant grocery store did not fail me. Not only did they have it but they had the Jell-O version and the store brand. I opted for Jell-O for authenticity. I also bought a brand new tube pan which means I can make my Grandma Garland's blueberry coffee cake sometime in the future. It's a magical cake that needs to be made more often.


I don't make oatmeal cookies often although I have a really great oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. The recipe was easy to follow and to make; it was a wetter dough than regular chocolate chip cookies. The result? A crispier cookie, more like a lace cookie than a regular oatmeal cookie. According to one of my co-workers this is literally the greatest cookie of all time. The only change I made was to use the entire bag of chocolate chips rather than half; you can never have too many chocolate chips in my humble opinion. These cookies are definitely on the "make again" list.

Which leaves us with the pistachio swirl cake. I may not be able to make Jell-O but I can make pudding. I also really like pudding, particularly vanilla pudding when I have a cold. It makes me feel better. I don't know why but it does. Pistachio anything also ranks highly in my book; I'm particularly fond of pistachio ice cream. The pistachio swirl cake intrigued me. Everyone I told about this recipe made a comment about it being so 70s because of the pistachio pudding. I haven't been able to find a definitive timeline of when pudding flavors were introduced but it's possible that pistachio was introduced before the 1970s although that is the decade where it's most popular. It's a key ingredient in Watergate salad which was super popular during that time. In addition to the recipe for Watergate salad the mystery lady shared with me, it still appears on Jell-O pistachio pudding boxes. Just in case.

The cake was the sleeper hit of these two recipes. Everyone who tried it loved it and a few asked if I'd make it again. The swirl part is a mix of cinnamon, sugar, and walnuts. I could have added more of that; next time I will. I want a more defined swirl. I hate the word "moist' but it's the only word to describe how perfect this cake turned out to be. The pudding was definitely responsible for that. Even after sitting out, lightly wrapped, it was still fresh and delicious. I was impressed with the cleanness of the cake once it was out of the pan; sometimes bundt cakes don't like to pop out of pans cleanly. This causes a lopsided cake but that didn't happen this time. I hated to cut into such a beautiful creation. 



Pistachio swirl cake is also on the "make again" list. There's another pistachio cake recipe involving chocolate (it's a marble cake); I'll make that one soon enough. Overall, I'm pleased with my the first set of recipes from the book. Granted, I picked two of the easier ones but I had to start somewhere. There are lots more to try although I want to avoid the zucchini recipe for as long as possible. It's one of my least favorite vegetables. Maybe I can make for someone who really enjoys zucchini and I won't have to try it at all.

I have a similar recipe book and my mother has a recipe card box. Both are stuffed with handwritten recipes and recipes we've clipped from magazines or boxes of one thing or another. In my mother's recipe box, she has recipe cards from both of my grandmothers. I love those the most; a keepsake of their handwriting and the food they made. Several of my friends and co-workers mentioned similar notebooks and boxes in their own families. One friend shared that the copy she has of her grandmother's recipes is missing ingredients or has incorrect amounts; she often has to call her mother to confirm things while in the middle of a recipe. She figures her grandmother got tired; her book is the third one her grandmother made (the others are for her mother and sister).

Finding the UT book (as I'm calling it) makes me wonder what will happen to my own recipe book one day. Will it end up staying in the family; maybe with my cousins or one of their children if I don't have my own children? Will whoever inherits it end of throwing it away? Or maybe it makes its way into a donation pile and winds up in a vintage or thrift store (will those even exist?) waiting for someone like me to find it and scoop it up like a vintage designer handbag? The hopeless romantic in me hopes it has a long and wondrous life.


Time for you to help me: Which UT book recipe should I make next? Your choices are:
  • Tomato Soup Cake
  • Date Nut Loaf
  • Pistachio Marble Cake
  • Sesame Shrimp and Asparagus
  • Strawberry Graham Cake
  • No-Name Cake Recipe.
Share your vote in the comments! I'll make the one with the most votes and of course, give you all the details right here on The Island of Misfit Toys!!


*From Linda Stradley, What's Cooking America
Photos by me

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Songs from the Sideshow

I've been watching the HBO show Vinyl since it's debut on Valentine's Day. On paper this is the perfect show for me: it's set in 1973 and is about a record company trying to find its way after not selling to a larger company. Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger are producers and Adam Rapp (a Pulitzer Prize finalist and brother of actor Anthony Rapp) is a writer on the show. They have permission to use all this great music, from the New York Dolls to Lou Reed to R&B classics and jazz masters. It should be my favorite show but it's not. Instead, Vinyl has become my new show to hate-watch. I haven't figured out how such a good idea could be executed so terribly. Paste has been doing a fantastic series of articles on the most ridiculous things that happen in each episode; at least it's not just me. I guess I should look on the bright side and enjoy John Cameron Mitchell's Andy Warhol (it's oddly mesmerizing), the fact that Mick Jagger's son James looks a lot like Richard Hell, and the Big Star reference on the last episode. In all seriousness though, the New York Dolls did not cause the collapse of the Mercer Arts Center. I love "Personality Crisis" (especially the yowling) but this is not the song of building collapses.


Instead the show has made me hyper-nostalgic for both the mid-1970s (a great time for music - check out Will Hermes's book, Love Goes to Buildings on Fire if you really want to experience everything that was happening at the time) and the 1990s, my second favorite decade for music. If you look at both periods, the amount of music and the variety of genres and musicians is staggering. 

I miss the 1990s. I know, I know nostalgia is only cute on occasion so long as it doesn't veer into the maudlin or a "get off my lawn" rant. But I really do miss the 90s. I started high school in 1993 so I spent my teen and early college years in the thick of it; what a time it was. I miss the chunky shoes and getting the Delia's catalog in the mail (and never ever buying anything because I have never been nor will I ever be a size 2) and buying peasant skirts and super uncomfortable cotton Mary Janes at Georgetown Cotton (any other DMV-ers remember that store?). I miss old school Urban Decay colors that were shocking when they were first released. I miss decent sitcoms and videos on MTV. I miss mix tapes and Blockbuster and shopping at Tower or Kemp Mill. I miss the feeling of witnessing something new and inventive when it came to music and scenes. Hell, I even miss flannel and boys with unnecessary long hair that always seems to be in their eyes (I'm looking at you Reality Bites era Ethan Hawke).

It's not entirely Vinyl's fault; I have to give credit everywhere credit is due. I've been listening to the local classic rock station a lot recently and in the last month or so songs by Weezer, Radiohead, Nirvana, and Cracker have all been played in a pretty strong rotation. Songs that were popular when I was a freshmen in high school are now on the classic rock station alongside Zeppelin, CCR, and the Beatles. I don't know how to feel about this. My friend, Emily, also experienced this recently but seems to be taking it in stride. I am reverting to my sullen, teenage self. All I want to do is sit in my room and listen to music all day or drive around listening to Soudgarden and Better Than Ezra and not doing anything worthwhile. But I didn't do that yesterday even though I really wanted to; I went to work and acted like an actual adult. Sigh.

I'm also reading Sara Marcus's book Girls to the Front about the Riot Grrl Revolution. In high school I worshiped at the altar of Tori Amos and Smashing Pumpkins and listened to a lot of musicals. And 90s soundtracks! It doesn't get any better than a 90s era soundtrack. I didn't listen to bands like Bikini Kill or Bratmobile or Sleater-Kinney (or the other awesome girl-fronted bands that came out in the 90s) or musicians like Liz Phair. I really liked L7 but didn't know anyone else who did (and they were only tangentially considered a Riot Grrl band). I liked Sonic Youth, rare for my high school, and I loved REM (so did the girls from Bratmobile). It wasn't until college (1997/1998) that I expanded my musical tastes to include the Riot Grrls and metal and goth bands. Freshmen year I lived in the dorms and traded mix tapes with a girl who lived across the hall. I'd send her Green Day and REM and sixties music; she'd send me Liz Phair, Rasputina, and Metallica.

One of the tapes she made me (I still have several of them although I have no way to listen to them now) was called "Songs from the Sideshow" and included an inordinate number of Canadian bands. I had the thought that if I ever had a band, this would be one of our album titles. It's also a perfect snapshot of 1998:


Of course there was cover art too. That's how we mix tape makers roll.


The tape doesn't include all music from the 90s but I've always felt like this tape summarized the decade pretty well (it's missing hip hop, rap, and a boy band or pop princess). There was so much music coming out that was good and innovative and different; how could you possibly know it all? It was also impossible to listen to some of it without looking back to what had come previously like New Wave or 70s era punk. There was, particularly in rock and punk of the 90s, a wink to the 70s and 80s without being a mimic or copycat. People expected you to know bands and understand music history. I seem to recall getting into a very heated discussion with a guy that claimed he loved Metallica but hated Led Zeppelin. Seriously? That doesn't even make sense. Looking back on this now, I have a feeling it was less about the bands and more about the fact that a girl knew more about rock music than he did. Girls to the front, gentlemen, girls to the front.

Of course I did what I always do when I get in these kinds of moods; I made a mix tape (or CD or playlist - whatever you prefer to call it). The mix includes 116 songs spanning the entire decade including everyone from Salt-N-Pepa to Lisa Loeb to Nirvana to Mother Love Bone and everyone else in between. It ended up as six CDs and I didn't even include everything I could or should have included. I even involved my brother in this endeavor asking him to bring me CDs I didn't have so I wouldn't have to give iTunes more of my money. It's epic and makes me happy, driving along singing along to songs with lyrics permanently etched in my brain. 

I guess it's all part of getting older. Eventually I will be that old chick at a concert with her "goth who likes unicorns" fashion sense, telling the story of when I saw the band back in the 90s when they first came out and how great they were before they sold out and how the music was so much purer back then. I'll say the exact things that piss me off when I go to shows today featuring bands and musicians from the 70s. The "kids" behind me will roll their eyes and judge me. I'll be a funny story they can tell their friends over micro-micro brews and cocktails with artisanal ice.

Until then, if you need me, I'll be over here listening to Chris Cornell in all his glory and wonder singing this song right here:

Friday, March 11, 2016

Misfit Toys Road Trips 2016


My mom and I are heading up to Detroit for a bridal shower so no new Island post this week. While I'm gone, explore the archive and enjoy some past Lazy Movie Weekend posts or revisit some of my early posts including my most viewed post of all time about the Alameda Spite House. Remember to make smart life choices and I'll see you next week.




Mom & I try our best to take a selfie...

Saturday, March 5, 2016

#5womenartists

Happy Women's History Month! I know, it's cool that we get a whole month to celebrate all this awesomeness. If you do nothing else to commemorate this month, thank the super cool women in your life for being them.

Recently I was having dinner with a new friend and we were discussing ways to get move involved in the social scene here in the DMV. She and I are both introverts so our social/going out habits have some similarities: we don't care for crowds, we like hanging out with a few friends than huge groups, we're not fans of clubs (you know what I mean), and we prefer to be in more casual settings. This is probably why we've moved from being work friends to friend friends; we got to familiarity and similarity pretty quickly.

She asked me about the museum and why I started volunteering there versus other museums or other volunteer opportunities. This is my third museum in DC. While I enjoyed both of my previous experiences very much, I never really felt connected to either institution. It was fun, the other volunteers were nice enough, and I like teaching visitors things about the collections. I hope that my tours enhance their overall experience and make their trip brighter.

Lilla Cabot Perry, Lady in an Evening Gown
Volunteering at NMWA is a completely different experience. Yes, I started volunteering because I wanted to meet new people (which I have and I enjoy them all very much) and because I wanted to get out of the house more but it means more to me. I feel a connection to the mission and artists at NMWA that I didn't feel at either of the other museums where I volunteered. I know my work at both locations has helped me be a better docent at NMWA. I love learning about the artists in the collection, the only museum dedicated to celebrating women artists. I remember hearing the names of artists like Lily Martin Spencer, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Lilla Cabot Perry in high school when we did a production of Wendy Wasserstein's play The Heidi Chronicles. Since then, it's been my habit to look for women artists whenever I go to a museum and now I get to hang out with them several times a month.

In honor of Women's History Month, the museum has launched a new social media campaign called #5womenartists. The intention behind the campaign is to bring women artists to the forefront and address the issue of gender imbalance in the art world. I've been following along on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter since the campaign launched on March 1st and it's been awesome seeing so many people participating and the variety of artists featured. Something like 90 museums are participating in the campaign. I'll let the Guerrilla Girls tell you a little about gender and museums:


Alice Bailly, Self-Portrait
I'm giving a tour on Sunday. I haven't given a tour in awhile so I'm excited to be able to encourage participation in #5womenartists while we tour the collection. I'm including four artists I've never included in a tour before and focusing on the international spirit of the collection. In preparing for the tour, I decided to see how many of my friends and co-workers could answer the question "Can you name five women artists?" The answer: not many. The question is harder than it sounds.  Even the Huffington Post agrees. My friends came up with two consistent answers, Georgia O'Keefe and Frida Kahlo (excellent options of course), but most faltered after two. One friend knew Mary Cassatt and another mentioned Margaret Tafoya. I was most pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of Tafoya; I only recently learned about her work as part of the last special exhibition at NMWA. Her mother was also a potter as are eight of Margaret's ten children.

I want to encourage everyone to get out there this month and find some women artists. NMWA is a great place to start and this Sunday just happens to be Community Day so admission is free and you could even join my tour if you're so inclined. I've shared a few of my favorites here to get you started. If you live in the DMV, you have lots of options: NMWA, the Portrait Gallery, American Art, the Hirshhorn, the National Gallery of Art, and the Phillips Collection just to name a few. If you don't live here, find a museum or gallery in your city and play tourist and art fan. I promise it'll be fun.

Mickalene Thomas, A-E-I-O-U and Sometimes Y
Amy Sherald, It Made Sense...Mostly In Her Mind
Next week: My mom and I journey to Detroit Rock City for a bridal shower and some other stuff that one does while visiting Michigan. 

Photos by me