Scripture Cake

In the delightful realm of riddle recipes, our scripture cakes number among many other examples of culinary evangelism the world over, all mere echoes of a far more textured oral tradition. This traditional Southern recipe for a dense, rich spice cake is typical; get the Book out before the bowls.

1 1/2 cups Judges 5:25
2 cups Jeremiah 6:20
2 cups 1 Samuel 30:12
2 cups Nahum 3:12
1 cup Numbers 17:8
2 tsp. 1 Samuel 14:25
4 1/2 cups 1 Kings 4:22
6 of Jeremiah 17:11
1 1/2 cup Judges 4:19
2 tsp. Amos 4:5
a pinch of Leviticus 2:13
season to taste with:
2 Chronicles 9:9

Follow Solomon’s prescription for unruly boys in Proverbs 23:14.
Bake at 350 until springy and toothpick-dry.

Queen Cakes

In cake aristocracy, we have the Lady Baltimore (His Lordship has one, too), the Regent, the Prince of Wales, and of course King Cakes. Then there are Queen Cakes, somewhat larger than cupcakes, which are traditionally usually baked in ribbed “patty-pans,” which modern-day paper cupcake liners faithfully replicate.

The recipe is like a pound cake’s, but an essential traditional ingredient is currents. Currants were popular in this country up until the early 20th century when their production and shipment were banned under federal law in 1911 because the plants were unjustly tagged as vectors for a timber blight. The ban was later relegated to local jurisdictions, but it’s unlikely you’ll find currants–fresh, frozen, or dried–in markets. You might find  Zante currants, which are actually dried seedless grapes, which on most days I call raisins. Me, I cut to the chase and use Sun-Maid.

Queen Cakes

Cream 2 cups softened butter with 2 cups sugar, then beat in 8 eggs one at a time. Mix the batter very well, then add a teaspoon vanilla; a half teaspoon mace, and 2 tablespoons brandy or rosewater are traditional, but optional. Sift a teaspoon baking powder with 4 cups cake flour. Mix very well until stiff, but not dry.  Add your “currants” liberally, but toss them with a bit of corn starch first, since they tend to clump. Use softened butter to grease your “patty-pans” (cupcake pans to us commoners) and paper liners. Fill cups a little over half-way with batter, and bake at 350 on the middle rack until golden and springy. Allow to cool completely before removing from pans. Feel free to top with royal icing.

Ars Voces: Wyatt Waters and The Great Out Here

I started painting when I was 2 years old; my kindergarten teacher taught me to read and to paint the story. She was really interested in art, and when I started school, she gave me private lessons. She’s probably the reason I started painting.

My dad fought in WWII, so his values reflected that: had to work, had to study. I can’t do just a little bit of something; I have to do a lot of it. I can’t do it for an hour and a half a day. If I don’t have a good immersion in it, it just isn’t going to happen. I went to Mississippi College, and we didn’t have aesthetics, but we had a creative writing class. It was so fun to be in that class: theme variations, tension, restraint; the big things. That was really my only aesthetics class, that and going to the truck stop to drink coffee after we’d dropped our dates off. You had to get your dates in by 10 p.m. back then.

I’m a dinosaur; I paint outside. I usually start to paint things based on what I call The Great Out Here, the reflected and atmospheric lights that are in the world. The more I paint, the more I look at something, the more it gets on my retina and creates an after-image when I look away from it. You know how a flash bulb goes off and you can still “see” this thing floating in your vision? Well, it’s that sort of thing. It’s why I work on location, because it happens when I’m working on location, and it doesn’t happen for me in the studio, at least not in the same way.

I carry a mirror with me. When I don’t know what to do, I look in the mirror, and the mirror tells me what it looks like to other people. It gives me some objectivity on what I’m seeing. And that probably is the trickiest thing that I use. Painting is considered kind of trick, you know, techniques and all that. I used to be pretty technique-y, but that takes the left-hand side of the brain and puts it on the right-hand side. When you’re writing something, and you come back to it the next day, it’s the same effect; you see how other people see it. When you’re close to it, you can’t tell what to do, so I use a mirror progressively as the painting develops. Like penicillin, I use it when I need it.

It’s also tied in to the idea that the real experience is a lost thing. We’re almost a virtual society now, and in a virtual kind of world, it becomes important for me to make a case for the real experience, or at least to be out there saying that here it is. So that’s what I do, paint on location, and let the real experience of being in front of something affect me, to let that to be my influence.

Invariably, though, when you’re working outside, all sorts of things are going to happen and you’re going to get into the zone, that hypnotic place, and you begin painting expressively. I try to let that happen; I don’t know how to make it happen, but when I paint, it seems to happen on its own. I’ve always loved how watercolor doesn’t do what you want it to do. It’s the only medium I can think of that moves while you’re painting; it drips and runs. It’s like dancing; It isn’t what you make it do, it’s taking advantage of what it’s doing in the first place. It’s like riding a horse. The horse knows something about the field; you don’t drive a horse, you listen to the horse.

I went to Paris, and here I was in one of the great centers of the art world, and I got really homesick. I figured out that the things I want to paint are all here. I didn’t think it would be that way, but all the things I want to do are here.

Anthony Difatta

Chicken Sausage

Grind 5 pounds chicken meat and skin through a ¼” plate into a large bowl. I boned thighs and throw in a couple of boneless breast halves. Add two tablespoons salt, a tablespoon ground black pepper (more if you want), and a quarter cup each of fresh chopped sage, thyme, and parsley,. Some people add cayenne, but don’t; it kills the herbs. Blend in a half cup fresh chopped green onion, along with a half cup cold chicken broth. Mix very well, and refrigerate before stuffing loosely into casings. (You’ll need about 12 feet.) Twist sausages into about 6-inch links, and refrigerate overnight to let the seasoning work through the meat. This also makes patties. This mixture will not keep well raw; if you’re not going to use it the following day, freeze.

Louvain’s Grillades

My friend Rick Louvain from New Orleans loves going to supermarkets “to see what the Great Unwashed are consuming,” and insists on dragging me to my little neighborhood store for a scathing inventory when he’s in town.

On a recent outing he declared the entire produce aisle nothing more than a compost heap. His withering assessment of the floral department brought a tall bald queen around the corner clicking his nails like a scorpion. Rick had to buy a dozen roses to save us both from getting bitch slapped and owning it.

After declaring every can in the store a ptomaine grenade, we hit the meat section.

I was jittery because the butcher on duty was my buddy Charlie, who has the build of a Sumo wrestler and the disposition of a lamb. After a sweeping forensic analysis of the meat section as a whole, we came to the discount section where he grabbed a flat pack of thin round for two bucks and grinned.

Big Charlie was right next to him, humming to himself and marking down hamburger. Rick slapped Charlie on the shoulder. “Hey! Is this round steak?”

I tried to die three times. “It surely is,” Charlie said with the most bountiful smile in the known universe.

“Great!” Rick said. “Run three pounds fresh through the tenderizer for me. We’re gonna get some stuff in the deli, we’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

Charlie winked at me when we got the meat, and I think he was thanking me for the customer, but I’m not sure. He goes out of his way to cut me t-bones to order, and if you ask me, I think he’s flirting. And that’s a big okay.

Once out of the store, Rick said, “We’re going to make grillades. This is what my gammy uses. She breads it, fries it, makes a roux in that, throws in some garlic and onion, bell pepper and celery, diced tomato, cooks it down in a casserole in the oven. Food of the gods, and you’re cooking.”

“You’ll never let up on me, will you, Rick?”

“You’re one lucky hoss, Jess.”

The Sun Rekindled

To confirm that the Charter of Christ embraces the profane cycle of life, the early Church adopted observances of the solar calendar from many different cultures.

The most significant of these are obvious; Easter, on the spring equinox, and Christmas, on the winter solstice. Others include All Saints’ Day, the mid-point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice; Lammas Day, the mid-point between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, while May Day, in between the spring equinox and the summer solstice (Beltane in the Celtic calendar) marks a celebration of the Virgin Mary in Christian culture.

February 1-2 falls between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, marking the middle of solar winter in the northern hemisphere. Called Imbolc in the Celtic calendar, Christians observe the date as Candlemas and the Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare (Ireland), who shares her name with the Celtic goddess Brigid, “whom the poets adored.” It’s also Groundhog Day.