FLORENCE CARRIER'S COWBOY CAKE
Makes 12–16 servings
The Heretic's Daughter is my first novel. The story is based on family legends passed down through nine generations and on the historical events of the Salem witch trials. I first heard of my ancestor Martha Carrier from my maternal grandmother. She always insisted that there were no such things as witches, only ferocious women. She would have known, as she was a dead shot with a rifle and rode wild horses on the farm where she grew up. The strong women in my family not only influenced the kind of stories I've chosen to write, but gave me the courage to write them in the first place.
I have always been struck by the remarkable courage and fortitude of the Colonial women of New England; how they endured the many physical challenges of day-to-day life while still managing to care for and feed their large families in the most Spartan of conditions. They had no electricity, obviously, or refrigeration, and they were entirely dependent on what they could grow and preserve. Sarah, the main character in The Heretic's Daughter, is taught by her mother Martha to cook at a young age, a valuable life lesson that becomes essential when Martha is taken away to jail, accused of being a witch. Sarah, a young girl of ten, is left to care for her brothers and baby sister. During the seventeenth century, the Carrier women would have made Johnny Cakes from corn mash in a pan suspended over an open hearth.
I remember my grandmother as a wonderful cook, often using simple, home grown ingredients from her own garden to create deeply satisfying and delicious meals that could best be described as comfort food.
Following is the recipe for Florence Carrier's Cowboy Cake, a modern take on the Johnny Cakes that Martha might have taught Sarah to make. They are best when shared with the ferocious women in your life.
2 cups light brown sugar, well packed
2/3 cup solid vegetable shortening or butter
2½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 large eggs (eggs can be lightly beaten into buttermilk or sour milk)
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
1 Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter and flour two 9″ round cake pans.
2 Using a pastry blender or fork, blend brown sugar and shortening or butter. Set aside ½ cup mixture for topping.
3 Sift flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt together (or mix well). Place in the medium bowl of an electric mixer, and add sugar and shortening mixture and blend well. Add baking soda, baking powder, eggs and buttermilk or sour milk and blend well. The batter will be thick.
4 Divide batter between two cake pans and sprinkle with reserved topping. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted at center of cake comes out clean.
5 The cake can be served warm or at room temperature, like a coffee cake (Mom said her mother always served it right out of the pan with a cake knife, hence the name “cowboy cake”; you could cook and eat out of the same pan).
Janice Y.K. Lee
Amy K. Boyd
SELECTED WOEKS
The Piano Teacher (2009)
Inspiration I'm often inspired by a single image — a woman in an antiseptic super-market, pushing an empty cart at 2 a.m., a couple fighting in the garden of a country inn — and set out to explore how those people got to that moment. I will often have the last line of the story before anything else. The Piano Teacher came from a short story about an English newlywed who was teaching a young Chinese girl the piano. I saw her sitting beside the student on a stool, a little uncomfortable, a little unknowing. From that, a whole world emerged.
The Piano Teacher is being translated into twenty-five languages around the world and it makes me smile to think of a French woman, a Brazilian man, and a Taiwanese college student all reading about these characters that were known only to me just a few years ago.
Readers Frequently Ask They mostly want to know how I came to write the book, how I chose the era. But like anything that takes a long time and a great deal of work, it's hard to look back and see how it all started. The Piano Teacher was at first a short story about Claire and Locket set in the 1970s. Then I started reading about the war in Hong Kong, so I moved it back to that time. More people were born and started to interact. There were many factors involved, over many months and years. The birth of a book is hard to describe. Like childbirth, you tend to forget about the pain and the labor in the afterglow of the actual product.
My Favorite Authors I have so many favorite writers but Jeffrey Eugenides, Michael Cunningham, and Amy Bloom are on the top of my list. I wouldn't say that they have necessarily influenced me, more that they have inspired me by producing truly great writing that makes reading a transcendent experience.
INDONESIAN GINGER CHICKEN
Makes 4–6 servings
From The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter, 1999)
I make this dish often because it's easy and delicious. It's a real marriage of East and West, with the ginger and the soy sauce, and the honey and the chicken. It's a mix of sweet and sour, much like Trudy Liang of The Piano Teacher, although I doubt you'd ever catch her in a kitchen. Researching a wartime novel made me aware of how precious food is when society breaks down. If distribution channels fail, it gets dire very quickly. Descriptions of meals during wartime were enticing because you got the sense that food was so dear. I describe rice dotted with salted pork, or tins of bully beef and condensed milk guarded like treasure. Somehow the tastes always seemed more potent in this time of scarcity and fear. In the high times before the war, however, there was also the exotic. Trudy might have eaten bear's paw or monkey's brains and, in one scene, she tells of taking the Japanese to dine on baby mice in Macao, reportedly a delicacy at that time.
This chicken is always moist and the perfect combination of sweet and savory. I often glop the sauce over everything else on the plate because it is so addictive. It's perfect for a book club because you make the sauce the night before, marinate the chicken, and put it in the oven before the book club arrives. After that, there's nothing for you to do except sniff the tantalizing aroma emanating from the oven as you sip wine with your friends.
I would serve it with rice pilaf and a crisp green salad.
Note: You can prepare the marinade in the morning and marinate the chicken throughout the day (5–8 hours) and still achieve excellent flavor, although it won't be quite as strong.
1 cup honey
¾ cup soy sauce
¼ cup minced garlic (8–12 cloves)
½ cup peeled and grated fresh gingerroot
2 small chickens (3½ pounds each), quartered, with backs removed
1 Combine honey, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat until the honey is melted. Place chicken skin side down in a large, shallow baking pan, and pour on the sauce. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil. Marinate overnight in the refrigerator (see note).
2 Preheat oven to 350°F.
3 Bake for 30 minutes, uncover the pan, turn the chicken skin side up, and increase temperature to 375°F. Continue baking for 30 minutes, or until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and the thigh and the sauce is a rich dark brown.
SINGAPORE SLING
Makes 1 drink
“What would an evening be like without drinks?” Trudy Liang of The Piano Teacher might wonder as she stirred a pitcher of these Singapore Slings, an iconic cocktail that originated in the famously atmospheric Raffles Hotel in colonial Singapore around 1910. There, languorous women lounged as they tried to beat the heat with icy drinks under slowly undulating fans. Life in Singapore and Hong Kong was much the same; privileged expatriates made the rounds of their favorite haunts, until the Japanese invaded in World War II and their way of life was interrupted. Trudy and Will might have gone to Singapore to visit friends, and found their very same world taking place
in another country. This drink takes me to a lobby with tall ceilings, palm fronds, and wicker chairs.
Note: Bénédictine is a sweet French herbal liqueur created from twenty-seven plants and spices.
1½ ounces gin
½ ounce cherry brandy
¼ ounce orange-flavored liqueur, such as Cointreau
¼ ounce Bénédictine (see note)
4 ounces pineapple juice
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons grenadine syrup
1 dash aromatic bitters
1 ounce club soda
Slice of pineapple, for garnish
Maraschino cherry, for garnish
1 Fill a cocktail shaker half full with ice cubes. Add the gin, cherry brandy, orange-flavored liqueur, Bénédictine, pineapple juice, lime juice, grenadine, and bitters.
2 Shake well, then strain into an ice-filled tall glass. Top with club soda. Garnish with a slice of pineapple and a cherry on a toothpick, and serve with tiny umbrellas.
Elinor Lipman
Gabriel Amadeus Cooney
SELECTED WOEKS
The Family Man (2009)
My Latest Grievance (2006)
The Pursuit of Alice Thrift (2003)
The Ladies' Man (1999)
The Inn at Lake Devine (1998)
Then She Found Me (1990)
Inspiration What inspires a particular novel? I can say that I start with just a glimmer of an idea, usually a first sentence that intrigues me enough to lead me forward. And then another impulse kicks in: I want to write the damn thing so I can find out for myself what happens to these people I've generally grown very fond of.
Looking Ahead I try to write 500 words a day, not counting the long breaks between books. A long time ago I got good advice from Tracy Kidder: to be working on and committed to a new project as the latest is being published. It seems the older I get the more easily I am distracted. On occasion, I've literally tied myself to the chair at my computer.
Readers Frequently Ask I'm often asked what happens to characters after the book ends. Even though I'm tempted to say, “Uh, well … nothing. They're fictional characters,” I still try to indulge the reader because it means that the characters have become real people with lives that continue after the last page. Oh, and often I get feedback about the movie version of Then She Found Me, my first novel. Many think that the book itself should have been the screenplay and did NOT like the changes. Because I loved the movie, I try to explain that any adaptation should be viewed as a movie based on characters suggested by the novel, and cannot be a carbon copy. Readers can be unbelievably loyal to the original text!
Influences on My Writing I have two, the first of which is Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin. After reading it for the first time — and I hadn't written anything yet — I wanted to try my hand at something that could be so smart and funny all at once. The second book is Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters. I read that over a long weekend, and came away (after reading about her workshop at Boston University, taught by Robert Lowell) thinking I should find myself a workshop, too, as a way to get started. I did, in 1979 at Brandeis University Adult Education, and that was where I caught the fiction bug.
KATHLEEN'S VEAL MARENGO FROM THE LADIES' MAN
Makes 4 servings
Here is the recipe I've been making for years, adapted from Craig Claiborne's The New York Times International Cookbook (Harper & Row, 1971).
Whereas other authors might set their scenes in battlefields or bedrooms, I often send my characters to restaurants, which is my idea of a good time. Many of my characters cook, and most are enthusiastic eaters. Not that I admit to autobiographical touches in my novels, but I did assign to Kathleen in The Ladies' Man something I do in real life: grade recipes. Dishes don't reappear unless they get an A. Dishes good enough for company have to get an A+. Kathleen's most famous dish was just an unglamorous stew-like thing she made for her sisters, but it became a little famous when the casserole dish that was holding its leftovers was used to near-concuss romantic villain Harvey Nash.
Note: This dish simmers for several hours, so plan ahead. You can substitute another cut of veal as long as it can be cut into cubes.
2 pounds veal, from the leg, cut into 1½″ cubes (see note)
1 teaspoon salt for the meat, plus more for seasoning
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper for the meat, plus more for seasoning
¼ cup butter or olive oil
2 onions, chopped (doesn't have to be too fine)
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1½ cups chicken stock
½ cup white wine
1 cup canned diced tomatoes, drained
2 sprigs parsley, plus chopped parsley, for garnish
1 rib celery, sliced crosswise
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary, or ¼ teaspoon dried rosemary
3 small (2-inches in diameter) yellow onions, quartered (or more if you'd like)
Buttered noodles, for serving
1 Pat the meat dry and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. In a medium skillet, heat butter or oil over high heat and fry the veal, a few pieces at a time so they're not touching, until browned on all sides.
2 When all the veal has been browned, return it to the skillet and lower the heat to medium. Add the chopped onions and cook until onions are lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and stir until it's fragrant. Stir in the flour and cook until that's lightly browned. Gradually stir in the chicken stock and white wine and bring to a boil. Add the tomatoes, parsley sprigs, celery, bay leaf, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook over low heat for 1 hour, careful that it doesn't burn.
3 Add the quartered onions, cover, and cook for 45 minutes longer. Meanwhile, prepare the buttered noodles.
4 Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve over noodles.
MY MOTHER'S NOODLE KUGEL
Makes 6–8 servings
Natalie Marx, the narrator of The Inn at Lake Devine, is an aspiring chef. When tragedy strikes at the once-restricted hotel, she helps by cooking, and her idea of a little revenge cooking is to make noodle kugel and brisket. I was thinking of my mother's noodle pudding, which is her mother's recipe, and probably her mother's recipe before that. Noodle puddings are either the sweet kind or the savory kind depending on where one's European roots are, and this is definitely the sweet kind. Still, my mother (and Natalie) served it as a side dish with the main meal. This is simple and takes no skill, but it's delicious and custardy. The topping (just milk and an egg) makes no sense at the prep stage, but it blends in and works fine in the finished kugel.
FOR THE CASSEROLE
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 8-ounce container cottage cheese (my mother used Hood's small curd)
½ cup sugar (or less, depending on taste)
2 large eggs (her trick to a good custard was to beat the eggs only lightly)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup whole milk
½ cup raisins
8 ounces wide egg noodles, cooked
FOR THE TOPPING
1 large egg
1 cup whole milk
Ground cinnamon and sugar for sprinkling
Crushed cornflakes (optional)
1 Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9″ × 13″ × 2″ glass baking dish.
2 To make the casserole: In a large bowl, combine melted butter, cottage cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, and raisins. Add the cooked noodles and stir in gently, then pour mixture into the prepared baking dish.
3 To make the topping: Beat egg, stir in milk, and pour over top of pudding. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and top with a few handfuls of crushed cornflakes. (I don't do the cornflakes.)
4 Bake 45 minutes. Serve warm. (It's also delicious cold the next day for breakfast.)
Laura Lippman
Jan Cobb
SELECTED WOEKS
The Girl in t
he Green Raincoat (2011)
I'd Know You Anywhere (2010)
Life Sentences (2009)
Hardly Knew Her (2008)
Another Thing to Fall (2008)
What the Dead Know (2007)
Inspiration My inspiration comes primarily from my hometown, Baltimore, which fascinates me. It's such an odd mix of dualities. North, south. Rich, poor.
The Mystery Misnomer I write crime novels, a term I prefer to “mystery” because the latter implies a whodunit and my books don't always fit into that model. I am often inspired by real crimes, but I don't feel that my stories are “ripped from the headlines” or based on these crimes. Instead, I like to explore the themes and issues raised by certain crimes.
Readers Frequently Ask The question I receive most often, hands down, is why Baltimore cops use the vernacular “a police.” (I am a police, I am a murder police, He's a good police, etc.) I don't know why they speak this way, only that they do. Others are concerned about coarse language, but I'm afraid that police procedurals without coarse language would be inherently false. I try to reply to all signed e-mails I receive, even the unkind ones.
Influences on My Writing I'm a lifelong reader, and much has influenced me. But I particularly liked Maud Hart Lovelace's “Betsy-Tacy” books. Which, not incidentally, are filled with delicious-sounding food.
Although I write about the quintessential Baltimorean, private detective Tess Monaghan, I sometimes feel I have just as much in common with her WASPy best friend, Whitney Talbot. And while Whitney is often mocked for her poor palate and general lack of interest in food, she prizes a good martini and the proper accompaniments. The martini recipe is my father's, slightly adjusted (I use less vermouth and better gin). The origins of the salmon dish, which my mother gave me in college, are now lost, but the cheese straws are credited to my great aunt Effie. One can buy commercial cheese straws, and I often do, but none compare to Aunt Effie's, who was a character in her own right, as brave and funny as Tess (and a much better cook). I've destroyed two cookie presses so far, working with this thick, heavy dough, but that's the price you have to pay. Come to think of it, a cookie press would make an excellent weapon in a mystery….
Table of Contents: From Breakfast With Anita Diamant to Dessert With James Patterson - a Generous Helping of Recipes, Writings and Insights From Today's Bestselling Authors Page 14
