The Tenant of Windfell Hall by Anne Bronte (1848)

I am in the midst of reading Victorian British literature. I even watched the BBC drama, 'Victoria and Albert'. I am steeping myself in the nineteenth century (when I am not snagging a Man Booker long list book, that is). That said, when I read that this book was a feminist novel, perhaps the first of that genre, I balked. No it is not.

 The women do not come off particularly well here. So maybe it is a feminist novel with an asterisk after it--considering the time.  Here the story goes.  Helen falls in love with Arthur, a man who turns out to be a womanizing lush.  Bad luck, because he controls her money, her child, and therefore her.  The options are to endure it or leave on her own, abandoning her child.  Helen thinks leaving without her boy is particularly bad idea because her husband is feeding alcohol to the youngster, and she can see no way that he will escape both his genes and his environment.  As a side note, Anne Bronte didn't have to leave home to find a model for Arthur--her brother, Branwell Bronte was said to be all of this and more.

So Helen devises a plan--she will support herself selling her art, and she will disguise herself as a widow--with the help of her brother, she sneaks off and starts a new life for herself--which goes pretty well until she catchers the eye of young Gilbert Markham.  She grows quite fond of Markham, and does nothing inappropriate, though he would like her to--but it turns out someone else had her eye on Markham and does not take kindly to his straying attention.  So it is a cat fight, and Helen has to move on.  That doesn't portray the female of the sex in any sort of good light. 

Not to worry, Helen and Gilbert will end up together--but not because Helen takes the reins.  Feminism has definitely evolved from this point--I prefer Middlemarch, which has some similar issues, but Mrs. Casaubon can take Helen any day of the week.

Lemon Pudding Cakes

If you love the taste of lemon curd and want a super simple dessert that is quick to put on the table, this is a great find.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2/3 cup superfine sugar, plus more for dusting
2 eggs, separated
2/3 cup reduced fat buttermilk
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Garnish:
Fresh berries--whatever you have

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and lightly sugar 4 ramekins (about 1-cup size).

In a mixer, add egg yolks, buttermilk, lemon juice and lemon zest and beat until well combined. Reduce the speed to low and sift in flour, sugar and salt. Continue to mix until combined. Beat egg whites until you get stiff peaks then combine the 2 mixtures by gently folding them together, a little at a time. Divide evenly amongst ramekins then bake in a water bath - set ramekins in a roasting tray and fill with water halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake for 45 minutes until the top springs back when gently pressed and the cakes have a nice golden brown color. Allow to cool slightly, then carefully invert onto a plate. Serve with fresh berries and dust with powdered sugar.

Dante in Florence

It is funny how a community can make a snap decision, like that you are sacreligious, and want absolutely nothing to do with you in your life time, then retrospectively, when history has had the opportunity to judge you as well, change their collective minds.

Florence is the town of Dante's birth and it is also a place that his family had inhabitated fro quite some time--Dante said from the time of the Romans, but that was never verified, by him or anyone else.


the earliest relative he could mention by name was Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), of no earlier than about 1100. Dante's father, Alaghiero , was a White Guelph who suffered no reprisals after the Ghibellines won the Battle of Montaperti in the middle of the 13th century. This suggests that Alighiero or his family enjoyed some protective prestige and status, although some suggest that the politically inactive Alighiero was of such low standing that he was not considered worth exiling...Italy was a rough and tumble place at that point in history, no doubt. The one thing that was clear is that you took sides.

Dante's family had loyalties to the Guelphs, a political alliance that supported the Papacy and which was involved in complex opposition to the Ghibellines, who were backed by the Holy Roman Emperor. The poet's mother was Bella, likely a member of the Abati family. After defeating the Ghibellines, the Guelphs divided into two factions: the White Guelphs (Guelfi Bianchi) — Dante's party, led by Vieri dei Cerchi — and the Black Guelphs (Guelfi Neri), led by Corso Donati. Although initially the split was along family lines, ideological differences arose based on opposing views of the papal role in Florentine affairs, with the Blacks supporting the Pope and the Whites wanting more freedom from Rome. Initially the Whites were in power, and they expelled the Blacks. In response, Pope Boniface VIII planned a military occupation of Florence. In 1301, Charles of Valois, brother of King Philip IV of France, was expected to visit Florence because the Pope had appointed him peacemaker for Tuscany. But the city's government had treated the Pope's ambassadors badly a few weeks before, seeking independence from papal influence. It was believed that Charles of Valois had received other unofficial instructions, so the council sent a delegation to Rome to ascertain the Pope's intentions. Dante was one of the delegates. He was essentially forced to stay.

Here comes the better news. At some point during his exile, he conceived of the Comedy, but the date is uncertain. The work is much more assured and on a larger scale than anything he had produced in Florence; it is likely that he would have undertaken such a work only after he realized that his political ambitions, which had been central to him up to his banishment, had been halted for some time, possibly forever. It is also noticeable that Beatrice has returned to his imagination with renewed force and with a wider meaning than in the Vita Nuova; in Convivio (written c.1304–07) he had declared that the memory of this youthful romance belonged to the past.

NW by Zadie Smith

I do not think I totally got this book. The reviewers just liked it so much more than I did. I am disappointed, because I really like the other two books that I have read by her. My first exposure to Zadie Smith was several years ago when I read all the books that my son was reading in a contemporary British literature course he took in college. I got behind in the reading immediately--the course started with 'Kepler' by John Banville. I hated it, struggled with each and every page. After a while I realized it was Kepler I disliked, misogynist that he apparently was--but I had trouble separating the character from the book. The next book was 'Possession, by A.S. Byatt, which in the end I absolutely loved, but I could not read it in synch with the class. So it was 'On Beauty' that was the first book that I read cover to cover on time--and in one sitting, en route to a lovely several days in Puerto Rico. I just loved it. So not loving this is a let down. The book is loosely linked to 'White Teeth', featuring four characters who share an upbringing in a less than privledged London neighborhood. They are grown ups, and yet largely not coping all that well. There is not the social context that I have found in the other two novels by Smith, so the characters seem unrooted without any reall reflection on why that might be. They do odd things for unexplained reasons, culminating in an ending more suitable for a murder mystery than serious fiction.

Cranberry Tart

For the cranberry filling:

1 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
12 oz. fresh or thawed frozen cranberries (about 3 cups)
3 Tbs. apricot jam

For the shortbread:
3-1/2 oz. (1 cup) sliced almonds
9 oz. (2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
1-3/4 oz. (1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs.) fine yellow cornmeal
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
8 oz. (1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces and softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 Tbs. packed finely grated lemon zest (from 1 large lemon)
3/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. pure almond extract
1 large egg yolk
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Make the filling

Combine the sugar, lemon juice, and 1/2 cup water in a 3-quart saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar, about 2 minutes. Add the cranberries and lower the heat to medium-low. Simmer until the cranberries have popped and the liquid is syrupy, 10 to 12 minutes. Stir in the apricot jam and simmer until the jam melts, about 1 minute more. Remove from the heat and let cool completely.



Make the shortbread

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 325°F. Spread the almonds on a rimmed baking sheet and toast until warm and fragrant but not yet brown, about 5 minutes; let cool completely.

In a food processor (with at least a 10-cup capacity), combine the nuts with 2 Tbs. of the flour. Pulse until very fine but not powdery, 20 to 25 short pulses. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the remaining flour, the cornmeal, and salt.

In the food processor, combine the butter, sugar, lemon zest, vanilla, and almond extract.

Pulse until creamy, 10 to 20 short pulses. Add the egg yolk and pulse a few times to combine. Add the dry ingredients and pulse, scraping down the sides as necessary, just until a soft dough forms, 30 to 40 short pulses. Turn the dough out onto a piece of plastic and divide.

Lightly coat a round 9 x 1-inch fluted metal tart pan with a removable bottom with cooking spray. Press half of the dough evenly onto the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap. Form the remaining dough into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate the dough and the tart shell until very firm, at least 30 minutes.

Prick the bottom of the tart shell all over with a fork and bake on a heavy-duty baking sheet until firm, dry, and just starting to turn golden brown around the edges, 30 to 35 minutes. The shortbread will have puffed up during baking, so use the back of a spoon to gently press down the bottom of the crust to create enough space for the cranberry filling. Spoon the filling into the tart and spread evenly.

Crumble the remaining shortbread dough over the cranberries in pebble-like pieces, covering the filling. Bake until the topping is firm and golden-brown, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Carefully remove the tart rim. Slide a long, flat spatula between the pastry and the pan bottom and transfer the tart to a serving platter. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, if using, just before serving.

The Girl From Paris (2001)

I loved this movie--and I love the place that the movie is set in.  Some of our closest friends have a sheep farm and make farmstead cheeses with the milk from their ewes.  In preparation for making a new type of cheese, a tomme (which is a washed rind aged cheese), they were planning a trip to the Hautes Alps in France to work with several different cheesemakers and invited us to come along.  It was spectacular, especially Eric Randu's cheese and family and chalet in the mountains.  Such a spectacular place to be.  And that is where this film is set.Its heroine, Sandrine Dumez (Mathilde Seigner), an unhappy urbanite drifting toward 30, who abruptly decides to follow her dreams and embrace the rural life.

In true French fashion, in order to qualify to get a farm she must first clear some bureaucratic hurdles, in particular a rigorous training program (telescoped here into the bloody slaughter of a pig and a daunting encounter with a giant combine). This is no place for dilletantes who want to make goat cheese and play the guitar, the instructor says. But Sandrine is practical and serious. After she buys a dairy farm in the Rhône-Alpes region from a grouchy old peasant, she sells her goat cheese over the Internet, and converts an unused cow barn into a rustic bed and breakfast.  The aforementioned grouchy farmer is at first jealous, then prone to sabotauge, and finally concedes that she is a far better farmer than he had any right to hope for, and vertainly doesn't deserve her goodness.  There are tense moments, but this being a French film, it all comes out alright in the end.

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow (1975)

At the time that this novel was published--which was 1975--historical fiction was just not done.  Reading this in the 21st century, 37 years afterwards, this does not seem so innovative, but then it was.  Be that as it may, the setting is in New York before WWI--somewhere towards the end of the novel the Archduke Franz Ferdinand is shot, and we know where it goes from there.  Nowhere good.  But at the time that comes before that, there is a different feeling in America.  People are entrenched in the Jazz Age.  Crazy stunts are being pulled.  Houdini is all the rage--and when interest in his antics wanes in the U. S., he sets off for Europe to wow them there.  Socialism is on the rise, and Emma Goldman, the famous Russian immigrant who is best known for advocating birth control for women and being briefly suspected of a conspiracy to assassinate President McKinley, is very sympathetically portrayed here.  So it is very fun to read about the time period, and having real people who we recognize inhabit the story along side of people who are bona fide fictional is an enjoyable interplay of fact and fiction.  The story that overlies the historical one is about the overt as well as the unconscious racism of the times--not that we are at all beyond that, because as the Obama-Romney Presidential Election of 2012 clearly demonstrates, race still matters in the 21st century, just less so and for fewer people.  That part of the book is sadder and  therefore how much you like it depends on what you like to read.  I read it along with one of my sons because he was assigned it for a course on understanding American culture, and it surely does help with that.

Deviled Food Forest Cakes

Let me just say that I would never ever make these on my own, but I recently spent a long weekend baking with my best baking buddy, Ivy.  She is the one who initially made these wonderful little chocolate trees, and if the truth be told, they look fantastic and they are not nearly as diffucult to make as you might imagine.

4 oz. Paper cone cups--like for a water cooler

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, Dutch-process
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
2/3 cups sour cream
3/4 cups hot coffee
4 ounces chocolate, melted over hot water
4 ounces white chocolate, melted over hot water

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter and flour the paper cone cups. Loosely ball 1 square foot of foil and place into 1 section of a muffin tin. Repeat until the tin is full. Press down the center of each ball, creating an indentation that will allow the cone cups to stand upright in the oven as they bake. Place cone cups into foil.

In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or using a hand mixer), cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and eggs and mix until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla, cocoa, baking soda and salt and mix. Add half of the flour, then half of the sour cream, and mix. Repeat with the remaining flour and sour cream. Drizzle in the hot coffee and mix until smooth. The batter will be thin.

Pour into the prepared cones, filling 3/4 of the way up and bake until the tops are firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (a few crumbs are okay), about 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes. With a serrated knife, trim off any cake that has overflowed so the top (which will become the bottom) is flat. Carefully peel off the paper cone to unveil the cake and invert them onto a wire rack. Drizzle melted milk chocolate and white chocolate over the "peaks" in thin spattery lines and let set up in the refrigerator.

520th Anniversary of Columbus Stumbling Upon the New World

It would have happened at some point. The Chinese had at least temporarily lost interest in exploration. They had sent out big ships, seen what the rest of the world had to offer, and they were decidedly unimpressed. So they packed up their moster ships and sailed home. Don't worry, the English figured out how to get them to come out and play. Opium helped keep the balance of world trade with China, despite their lack of interest in other things they had to offer (which does not seem to be a possible solution to the current trade imbalance). So Europe had a chance! The shipping nations started off exploring in earnest--the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Dutch, with the English bringing up the rear. If Columbus hadn't found the Americas, someone else would have soon thereafter. It was bound to happen.
The things that followed had some intended and some unintended consequences.
The Europeans were not going out to explore to meet new people.  They wnated to loot riches, and thought that the native people should be happy to work for them, and the women should also have sex with them--why they thought this would happen, when it wouldn't have at home, is a bit of a mystery.  Vasco da Gama was not finding it all that easy to come by either of these situations in his trip around the Horn of Africa.  unfortunately for the New World, they were woefully behind on weapon development and what they gained by being familiar with the terrain, they conceded in susceptability to diseases they had no previous exposure to.  We all know the end of this story, and while allt hat Columbus did is hardly worth celebrating, the discovery of America changed the world forever, and today is the day that we recognize that ahppening.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

The scene opens with various and sundry people figuring out that their golden years in Britain are not all that sunny.  The economy is in the tank, the health care system is sending out surgey to India, and what are supposed to be the 'Golden Years' are vastly under-funded and they are not in good humor about it.  So what to do?  The solution is to take their pounds to a country where they will fare better, or at least stretch further.  One of the crowd is a gay man seeklng forgiveness from a lover, and one is getting an operation but the others have primarily financial motivations that many of us can relate to.

So off they go to what in the broshure looks like Paradise, and when their  bags are packed with pride, prejudice, problems and prospects by some of Britain's best actors — including Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith — it makes the trip (and the movie) worth taking. Complementing all that aging grace is Dev Patel, the breakout star of"Slumdog Millionaire," as the irrepressible young owner of the Marigold. Aptly named Sonny, he is trying ever so hard to gloss over any rough patches — at the hotel and in his life or his guests'. It all makes for a movie whose infectious charm outweighs some of the predictability that slips in around the edges.  I just loved how the whole story unfolds--it is good clean fun throughout.  Highly recommneded, especially if you are at or nearing middle age.