Archive for August, 2011
First Ladies Cook! Letitia & Julia Tyler
August 8, 2011When we left our First Ladies soap opera, President Harrison had died after only one month in office. The vacancy of Prez was filled by his Vice Prez, John Tyler, two days later. He soon became known as “His Accidency” by those who didn’t like him, which was a lot of people after he stuck it to his own party, The Whigs, and didn’t go along with their programs.
Oops.
In retaliation, The Whigs expelled Tyler from their party and his Cabinet resigned, except for one guy who decided to stick around, ride this thing out and see what happened.
Actually, I think the Tea Party of today would embrace Tyler for his belief in following the Constitution to the letter, the right of the states to work their own shit out and his love for the good ol’ conservative Southern politics of the time (i.e. planter’s rights and the belief in the institution of slavery). If alive today, he would certainly have a Confederate flag in the cab of his pick-up and one of those decals of the cartoon character Calvin peeing on something, maybe a slave, in his case.
I’m just sayin’.
But what about the missus? Or, in this case, the missuses?
Tyler’s first wife, Letitia Tyler, was confined to a wheelchair by the time her husband took office (she’d had a paralytic stroke several years before) and had not planned on living at the White House when her husband became Vice President – she was to stay at their home in Williamsburg. But then John got called up to the majors and she felt obliged to make the move, although she did not serve as the official hostess. This duty fell to her daughter-in-law, Priscilla, while Letitia spent her time with her Bible and her knitting.
She died at the White House on September 10, 1842, “holding a damask rose in her hand.” And whistling “Dixie.”
So then what happened? Well, what do you think? He married a young, hot chick! Put that wheelchair in storage and let the good times roll!
Julia Gardiner Tyler was known as “The Rose of Long Island.” She came from a prominent, wealthy New York family and made her “debut” at 15. Her parents brought her to Washington DC in 1842 for the social season and she caught the eye of the President, who was 30 years her senior and a widower of about 3 months, but also many other powerful men.
So how was the Prez going to get an edge on things?
“Tragedy brought his courtship poignant success the next winter. Julia, her sister Margaret, and her father joined a Presidential excursion on the new steam frigate Princeton; and David Gardiner lost his life in the explosion of a huge naval gun. Tyler comforted Julia in her grief and won her consent to a secret engagement.”
When life hands the object of your desire lemons, you make them into lemonade for yourself!
For the last eight months of Tyler’s administration, Julia presided over the social activities with the enthusiasm of a sorority president during rush. She instituted a formality to White House receptions and dressed the hilt, attended by maids of honor wearing white. My, my, my…
After his Presidency ended, Julia and John retired to Sherwood Forest in Virginia and had a mess of kids. Julia acted as as the mistress of the plantation. Which is not as cool as being “Mistress of Cats” or “Mistress of the Night.”
So from this revolving door of White House Mistresses, The First Ladies Cookbook, brought to you by Fritos, selected recipes for “the Tylers” for a Tyler Pudding and something called Sally Lunn. Tyler Pudding is really just a coconut cream pie but the Sally Lunn seems more intriguing.
At first it sounded very Southern to me. “Well, ah best be gettin’ the Sally Lunn done made.”
But it’s actually an old French (most likely) recipe that found its way to Bath. There is much debate over whether there actually was a “Sally Lunn” or if it just became the name for these yeast buns that are often scented with lemon and served with cream.
If you’re planning a trip to Bath (you are, aren’t you?), you can go to the actual Sally Lunn building (bakery) (read all about the history of the Sally Lunn Bun by following that link – it seems like a lot of fuss for something that looks like an enormous hamburger bun) and have yeself a bun and a spot of tea. Otherwise, you can make this recipe at home, brew up some PG Tips and scarf it down while watching The Bachelor or some such American nonsense.
Sally Lunn
1 yeast cake
1 cup milk, warm
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, whole, beaten
4 cups flour
For decorating: glace cherries, angelica, glace orange and lemon rind (or open up a big vat of frosting and spread it on)
Put yeast cake in 1 cup of warm milk. Cream together 1/2 cup of butter and 1/3 cup of sugar, add the 3 beaten eggs and mix well. Sift in flour alternately with the milk and yeast. Let rise in a warm place; then beat well.
Pour into one well-buttered Sally Lunn mold (you know – the Sally Lund mold you got for your wedding. You knew it would come in handy one day!) or two smaller molds. Let rise again (much like they say the South will rise again) before baking in a moderate oven (325 degrees) until light brown.
Can be decorated with the cherries and angelica and then slices of glace orange and lemon rind. Or the store-bought frosting and sprinkles. ENJOY!
Missing out on the First Ladies Cook action? Read past posts here.
Project #4: Redo of the Abandoned Shelf In The Garage
When we bought our house, the people who lived here before us didn’t bother to clean out the garage when they left. Too much effort. Better to just leave it filled with detritus that we would deal with in the years to come.
Some stuff has been cleared out but much still remains. It’s the space that I think I’ve spent time cleaning and organizing until I go out there and really LOOK. It looks the same as it did a year or two ago. And then I might throw away one thing and split because it really harshes my mellow.
So it took much energy to haul this out of the garage into the bright light of day:
This shelf was the happy home for Collection of Old Paint Cans. One of them merrily wept its orange goo on the bottom shelf for many years. I have now gotten rid of every paint can in the garage and it left this shelf just sitting there. It is a very sturdy shelf.
So this is what it’s doing these days, a round of sanding and several cans of spray paint later:
The metal frame was fun to sand and spray paint. The shelves of wood kinda sucked. But I love the results.
I’ve got this awful old cement “patio” and steps that really, really need to be redone but the Year of Unemployment lingers on and it ain’t happening this summer so… this is what I call a Distracting Element that draws one’s eye away from the crumbling, cracking mess.
I took the above photo this morning and then I turned around and took this one:
"I good dog. Why you give bath? You hate?"
