The Age of Innocence

Oh Edith Wharton, how I love you.

The Age of Innocence is pretty classic Wharton: amazing characterization, a love story that goes awry, heartrending sadness mixed with satirical observation. Set in high society in New York in the 1870s, The Age of Innocence tells the story of Newland Archer, an up-and-coming young lawyer, who was recently engaged to the fair, serene, and always proper May Welland, and May's cousin, the dark, complicated, and rarely proper Countess Olenska.

Newland Archer was a bit wishy-washy as a main character for my tastes, I thought the two women were much more interesting characters. But by far my favorite parts of the book were the descriptions of May and Ellen Olenska's obese grandmother, old Mrs. Mingott, which were strikingly vivid.

For example, these sentences are taken from a scene where Newland Archer goes to visit Mrs. Mingott shortly after she has had a stroke.

"She merely looked paler, with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of her obesity; and, in the fluted mob-cap tied by a starched bow between her first two chins, and the muslin kerchief crossed over her billowing purple dressing-gown, she seemed like some shrewd and kindly ancestress of her own who might have yielded too freely to the pleasures of the table.

She held out one of the little hands that nestled in a hollow of her huge lap like pet animals, and called to the maid: “Don’t let in any one else. If my daughters call, say I’m asleep.”"

How can you not love someone who can write like that? I feel quite happy that Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer for this book. I must say, so far so good with catching up on the classics I've missed; I've really enjoyed both The Great Gatsby and The Age of Innocence.

New York, New York

Well we're back. Tired, with a lot of dirty clothes, and a lot of great memories, and more than a lot of pictures.

We did the normal touristy stuff, and ate at some of the normal touristy places, and a few local off-the-beaten path spots as well. We ate cheesesteaks in Philadelphia, hummus in Yonkers, Chinese in the Bronx, hotdogs and pretzels from vendors, and pizza pretty much all over Manhattan. Sadly it didn't occur to me to take pictures of the food we were eating for most of our trip, because I was so busy taking pictures of touristy hotspots. Plus, navigating mittens, food, and camera would have been a lose-lose situation for me. But I did take a few, so here you go:

This pizza is from Lombardi's, supposedly the best in New York according to some sources. It was good, but not great, and the lighting in the restaurant was terrible, making for this not so great picture. The crust was a little bit too dry for me, but the mozzarella was fantastic, which made up for a lot. Besides, it's pizza, and I love pizza in almost any shape or form.

This omelet was from An Beal Bocht, an Irish pub/cafe in the Bronx. It was pretty much amazing, and my plate went from the above picture to the below picture in record timing. The eggs were perfectly fluffy, stuffed with cheese and ham and peppers and onions, and accompanied by tasty home fries and perfectly toasted toast. Just don't expect them to actually serve breakfast at 10 when they open...we definitely beat the cook there by about 20 minutes. The food will totally make up for the wait though.

And last, but most definitely not least, is the wonderful, the amazing, the magnificent (cue trumpets) CREAM PUFF from Beard Papa's Sweets Cafe. Noel and I first discovered Beard Papa's on our honeymoon in San Francisco, and I had been salivating for another one ever since. These creampuffs are seriously the creme de la creme (ok, I know, that was a terrible pun, but really, you should've seen it coming). My memory was not wrong....they were just as excellent as I remembered. The choux pastry was flaky and only mildly sweet, and the cream was, well, creamy--with a sublimely rich vanilla flavor. Now if only Beard Papa's would open some locations in states besides New York and California...

Veggie Tacos, Wheat Rolls, Apple Pie, Macaroni and Cheese and Molasses Cookies

I'm in New York on vacaaaaation! When I get back, hopefully I'll have some fantastic pictures and stories to share! But in the meantime, I thought I would leave you with the links to some of my favorite recipes.

I don't recommend eating them all at once, you might die of delicious over-indulgence. But if you split them into two meals, I think you might have a couple of tasty dinners on your hands!

Veggie Tacos

Apple Pie

Macaroni and Cheese

Wheat Rolls

Molasses Cookies

Bon appetit! I'll be back in a week!

Emily of New Moon

Since my middle name is Anne (most definitely with an 'E'!) I was always a fan of the Anne of Green Gables series. I love almost all of L.M. Montgomery's books though. The Blue Castle, Kilmeny of the Orchard, and the Pat of Silver Bush books are all excellent. I had forgotten how wonderful the Emily novels were till I recently picked them up again on a whim. The Emily novels consist of three books: Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily's Quest.

Emily of New Moon starts out when Emily Byrd Starr, aged not quite eleven, is not yet Emily of New Moon. She lives with her father, who is estranged from her late mother's family, the Murrays of New Moon. After the death of her father, the orphaned Emily is taken to live with Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Laura, and Cousin Jimmy at the New Moon farm.

These books are classic L.M. Montgomery. Emily is a serious, curious, occasionally pert little girl, who generally means well, but often gets in trouble with the aunts because of the things she says that they just don't understand. She loves nature, spending hours with her friend "the Wind Woman", and various trees and flowers and cats and gardens. Emily's other great passion is writing: she starts by writing letters to her dead father, which soon progresses to writing stories and poetry. In Emily of New Moon Emily meets Teddy, a semi-invalid with a jealously possessive mother, Perry the hired hand at the farm, who is also an orphan, and Ilse, whose mother is dead and whose father is neglectful. The four of them have many different adventures, and Emily learns to love New Moon in spite of her sorrow over the death of her father.

Emily Climbs continues as the four children go to high school in nearby Shrewsbury. Emily has to board with the unlikeable Aunt Ruth, and sufferes many misadventures as she attempts to get an education, continue her writing, and yet not disgrace the Murrays. Emily, Ilse, Teddy, and Perry are all about 14 when this book starts, and 17 when it ends, at an age when romance is beginning to blossom. Emily receives a fantastic career offer, and must decide whether or not she is ready to leave New Moon.

Emily's Quest continues the story after high school. I read it once in fourth or fifth grade, but I haven't re-read it yet, so I can't give you any details. I'm planning to take it with me when we go to New York this week though (that's right! I said NEW YORK) so I'll fill you in on how it ends later!

I highly recommend giving these books a read: if not for nostalgia of a bygone era, just because Emily is a likeable, stubborn little girl. I think you'll like them, especially if you liked Anne of Green Gables.

P.S. And if you don't like reading...there have been both a Canadian television series and a Japanese anime series based on the Emily books, so you can always watch the story instead of reading it....but you'll miss out on L.M. Montgomery's moralistic but entertaining prose.

Tempera Painted Butter Cookies

So (for now) my five favorite things in life are:

(1) Noel
(2) pizza
(3) reading
(4) butter cookies
(5) chocolate

It's a bit embarrassing that 3 of my top 5 are food items, but hey, I can't lie, I like eating! And, I'm pretty sure I have perfected #4 on my list, so I have to share my new technique.

I've been making these cookies for years in various shapes and formats. I make bunnies and ducks at Easter, Christmas trees and stockings at Christmas, leaves in the fall, which I've talked about before, and for Valentines Day I always make hearts, which normally I frost and decorate like those candy hearts with little sayings on them. This time, however, I decided to experiment with the tempera technique that I used at Thanksgiving time last year, and it worked beautifully.

Before you bake them the cookies look a little odd, the tempera is thin and yellow-ish, and it seems like they won't turn out. But both times I've done it they've come out in bright jewel tone colors, and they're very festive looking. The tempera technique is also really a cinch to do. My one word of warning is that you need to make sure that whatever brush you use to apply the tempera doesn't lose its bristles easily. Last time I used some little kid water color type paintbrushes, and they kept losing bristles on the cookies. (And on a total sidenote, later I noticed that the brushes were made out of horsehair! Ack!!! So I checked all the cookies again, and threw away two that looked like they might've had a bit of a brush bristle on them, but I'd already given some away. Sorry to those of you who ate those...hope you weren't vegetarians...)

So anyway, this time I used a basting brush to brush the tempera on, and it went pretty quickly since I was doing hearts. I think it would be a little tricky to use a basting brush if you wanted to do more intricate cookies, but it might still work. What's brilliant about using tempera instead of frosting is that since you apply the tempera before baking there's no need to wait for cookies to cool before you frost them, or for frosting to harden before you can stack them. I rolled out, cut, painted, baked, and cooled them all, and had them in a container less than an hour after I started pre-heating the oven, which isn't bad for almost seven dozen cookies!

Because the tempera lends a bit of crustiness to the top of them they taste more like a shortbread cookie than a butter cookie, but I kind of like that, because I think you can taste the actual buttery, flaky cookie more than when you smother them in frosting and they become just another sweet treat. My valentine definitely likes them this way, that's for sure!

Egg Tempera
(makes enough to top about 40 two-inch cookies)

1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon water
2 drops vanilla extract
3-5 drops food coloring

In a small bowl stir together the egg yolk, water, vanilla, and food coloring until it's all evenly colored and slightly fluffy. Brush a thin layer over the top of butter or sugar cookies, sprinkle with sugar, and bake as directed. The tempera doesn't expand a lot, so don't use it on cookies that rise substantially, it will just crack. Also make sure that you only put a very thin layer on the top of the cookies, if you get it too thick it'll run off the cookies while they're baking and smell eggy, which is just weird! Let the cookies cool for a minute or two after they come out of the oven, then stack and store them in an airtight container. I also wouldn't recommend the tempera technique if you're trying for pastel shades, because the egg yolk is so bright to begin with that you have to put quite a bit of food coloring to dilute the yellowness.

P.S. Before I get any comments from the peanut gallery...Noel is definitely staying in my top five! It's the cookies/pizza that might be negotiable!

Daughter of Fortune: A Novel by Isabel Allende

Daughter of Fortune tells the story of Eliza Sommers, a young orphan who is raised in Valparaiso, Chile, by Jeremy Sommers and his spinster sister Rose. Eliza is cared for by Rose, and the family's cook, Mama Fresia, who is a bit of a medicine woman.

Although Eliza is raised as a proper Victorian young lady by Rose, she falls in love with a young Chilean named Joaquin Andieta, and when Joaquin leaves for California to try to find gold, Eliza follows him. She is helped along her way by Tao Chi'en, a young Chinese doctor who worked for Captain John Sommers, her uncle.

I liked that this book, although mostly about Eliza, also delved into the past history of other characters, particularly Miss Rose Sommers and Tao Chi'en, plus a host of minor characters. These detailed characterizations lent validity to the plot, which was admittedly farfetched, but didn't actually seem so. It seemed quite believable that a spunky orphan could meet the challenges that Eliza had to face in Chile and California, and not be fazed.

Allende vividly portrays life in mid-nineteenth century Chile and gold rush California. She paints a picture of a very rigid and stratified society in Valparaiso, and a wild, lawless society of men and prostitutes in California.

My two caveats are: there are a few love scenes, which was awkward since I was listening to this on audio book in my office. I should've learned my lesson with the last Isabel Allende book I listened too, but I kind of forgot till the 'awkward bits' rolled around! So I'd recommend just reading the hard copy, or listening to the audiobook in your car! Secondly, the book ended a bit anticlimactically for me. I felt like a story that I was so invested in should have finished with more of a bang.

But the very likeable characters and interesting (if sometimes predictable) plot made up for my two small complaints. I would definitely recommend this, and I think I'll give some more Isabel Allende a try.