PaperGirl Blog by Mary Fons

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21 Sep 2015

Mary’s Test Kitchen: Chocolate Cake + Chocolate Icing

by Mary | posted in: Food | 0

Isn't a real flower on a cake the best? — Isn’t a real flower on a cake the best?

I have just a few days left in Iowa. On Tuesday, I fly to California where I will be for almost a full week. Mom and I will be lecturing at the irresistible Meissner’s Sewing in Sacramento and that’s fun, but even funner is that my favorite aunt lives in Sacramento and I’ll be staying with her. We will drink pots of coffee and talk about bloodlines and Ferragamo footwear.

Before I leave, I have a lot of cooking to do. Mom and Mark have a kitchen far bigger than the one-bedroom apartment kitchens I’m used to, so whenever I’m home, I get to set up a mini-culinary school for myself. Within the past week, I’ve practiced marinating and grilling, I baked coconut-macadamia crisps, I’ve made succulent fruit salads with unexpected herbs (basil n’ sage!) and worked with some sauces. But what I made today may be the finest food I have ever produced in the test kitchen: I made a perfect chocolate cake. Would you like the recipe?

Note: I made enough changes to both the cake and the icing recipe I found that I’m calling it my own, but like a yoga pose or a quilt block, there ain’t nothin’ new under the sun. But I do feel proud about the bourbon I added when the recipe called for no such thing.

Mary’s Test Kitchen Chocolate Cake + Chocolate Icing

INGREDIENTS + INSTRUCTIONS – CAKE
– 2 cups flour, sifted
– 2 cups sugar
– 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
– 2 tsp. baking powder [Note: there was no baking powder, so I did a cream of tartar/baking soda substitute. It’s 1:2 ratio and was this one of the secrets to the cake’s success?? Necessity? Mother? Invention? Could be.] – 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
– 1 tsp. salt
– 1 tsp. espresso powder
– 1 cup half-and-half
– 1/2 cup vegetable oil
– 2 eggs
– vanilla, which I never measure but just pour in
– a nice splash of Wild Turkey and then some more
– 1 cup boiling water

1. Put on an apron for heaven’s sake. Set the oven to 350-degrees. Butter and lightly flour two cake pans. When your mother’s dog looks up at you for a treat, say “Scram, kid. It ain’t gonna happen.”
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Start boiling the water.
3. Now put in the wet ingredients while the water is boiling. Be methodical about this — do I need to say more? I mean, do the oil. Then an egg. Then the other egg. I did the bourbon last.
4. Take that cup of boiling water and add it — slowly — to the batter as it’s mixing. This adds air bubbles. Reflect on how rad baking is.
5. Pour batter evenly into the two pans. Bake for about 35 minutes or till the knife comes out clean.
6. Take out the cake and cool it. I hate, hate waiting for anything to cool, so I put the cakes in the freezer and they cooled pretty fast.
7. Frost. Dust with cocoa powder. Go out into the garden and pluck a rosebud from the bush. Place atop. Receive hugs.

INGREDIENTS + INSTRUCTIONS – ICING

Caution: Get icing out of your field of vision immediately after making. Its power is total and will disable the part of your brain that says, “I can’t just eat spoons of icing out of a bowl.”

2 (1.65 oz.) Trader Joe’s 72% cacao chocolate bars because they were in your luggage and looked better than the Baker’s chocolate in the cupboard
1 (14 oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk
Pinch of salt
Lots of vanilla

1. Focus. Say to yourself, “A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.” Say it again.
2. Melt the sweetened condensed milk and the chocolate in a heavy saucepan. When you add the vanilla, it will probably catch on fire for a minute, which is awesome. Be careful, but enjoy the moment.
3. Add the salt.
4. Cool the Pot of Evil until you can’t stand it anymore and have to ice the cake.

19 Sep 2015

Sleeping In Church.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Story, Tips, Travel | 0

Last night, I slept in the sanctuary of a church in rural Iowa.

I just got a bee in my bonnet and felt like I needed to commune, so I got in the car, searched on my phone for “country church, Iowa”, and drove north. I found a humble church, broke open the door, and poked around. When it was time for bed, I had to try various pews throughout the night because for some reason I slept poorly.

Just kidding. But I did sleep in a sanctuary!

The Quilted Steeple is a retreat center in Lone Rock, IA, far and away the coolest retreat center I’ve ever retreated to. Several years ago, this church was shuttered and up for sale. The fabulous Julie Dodds, who had attended church there most of her life (and whose mother played the organ there for decades) came down from Michigan to buy the collection plates for sentimental reasons. She ended up buying the church itself, partly because she was not keen on the idea of a motorcycle gang taking over the place; they had put in an offer and it looked like they might get it. By the name of the retreat center, you have surmised Julie is a quilter, so she followed her vision to make it a haven for quilters to come and sew and relax. Hooray!

It’s amazing how perfect a church is for a retreat; I am teaching here this weekend and I saw it for myself. Classes take place in the in the church basement. There’s a fully tricked-out kitchen down there for big-group meal prep. Lectures and trunk shows happen in the sanctuary, and the (many bedroomed, many bathroomed) parsonage across the gravel sidewalk serves as lodging. Cornfields as far as the eye can see muffle the big world beyond and I can’t even talk about the sunset/sunrise out here.

When I got the tour, we went into the pretty-but-definitely-country sanctuary; there’s no stained glass here just wood lattice work over the peaked windows — this is no mega-church. It’s not chapel-small, but seeing as I have not been in a chapel except in Vegas, I might be wrong about this. At any rate, it is neat. Julie pointed up to the choir loft and said, “That’s a bedroom now.”

I took the Lord’s name in vain and whirled on Julie. “Is it taken?? Can I sleep there??” Julie said that I could.

I take it as a good sign that I slept like a damned baby.* The trundle bed was comfortable; I wrote in my journal after gazing down at the big bowl of prayer below for awhile. This morning, the sun from the front door lit up the whole aisle in toasted, golden light. I am not a church-going woman, but I do recommend sleeping in a choir loft at least once in life. Very peaceful, even for a depraved sinner like myself.

The Quilted Steeple isn’t just for quilt retreats. I have no compunction about endorsing, even shamelessly advertising this place. Weddings, funerals, any kind of educational retreat, family reunions — whenever you need a bunch of people for at least one overnight, book the Quilted Steeple. One lucky person will get the choir loft bedroom and if the cat’s out of the bag that it exists, I recommend early dibs.

Thank you, Julie. And thank you for taking the organ out because I had room for my suitcase and my purse and my computer bag.

*No way, no how could I resist that one. Sorry.

17 Sep 2015

Mom! TV! Love!

by Mary | posted in: Family, Work | 0

I will write about the movie theater. Until then — because I need to do some more fact-checking and get the perfect picture of the theater in the 1960s or 1970s — a photo of my mother and me. This was at QuiltCon in 2013.

Mom and I just wrapped taping the public television show we co-host, “Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting.”

I love you, Mam. You are really good at making quilts.

15 Sep 2015

The Night Baker.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Story | 0

Time to make the you-know-what. Photo: Wikipedia

I smelled donuts this morning and recalled the summer my older sister got a job as a night baker for the bakery up on the town square.

Hannah was in high school; I was in middle school. When she got the job making donuts and rolls through the night, I thought there had never been a cooler thing to happen to anyone, ever. A job that took place at night? A job making donuts? I didn’t even know donuts were made. I thought they just appeared in a box. How was a donut made? Did she get to eat some as she went? Hannah would be able to tell me.

Many times that summer I would get up at 4am and go down to the backyard. I’d lay back in the hammock and look up at the pre-dawn sky and wait for Hannah to come home. The small bakery was just up on the square, which meant it was roughly three blocks from the hammock. Before too long, Hannah would open the gate and she would be so stoked that I got up to meet her. She’d lay on the hammock with me and we’d talk about all kinds of things. She smelled amazing because smelled like donuts.

Those days are so far away, now. We all know being home is a fraught thing. Here’s the bakery where Hannah worked and the place where the hammock used to swing; there’s the familiar creak and groan on the eighth and ninth step of the staircase; there’s the place where the armoire used to be. A lot of people who live far from their childhood home don’t go back nearly as often as I do; I come back at least twice a year to tape TV; this means I have an ongoing relationship with my hometown past but I also see changes as they occur.

Last month, my mother bought the old movie theater on the square. It’s right next to the bakery. More on that tomorrow. Will we all smell like film?

13 Sep 2015

Iowa No. 3029180

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life | 0

I’ve come to Iowa to tape the PBS show. This means I am in Winterset and will be working in Des Moines this week. It also means I will be sleeping in the bedroom I shared with my younger sister from the age of nine to the age of thirteen or so. Thankfully, it does not look the same as it did back then, though I miss the Madonna posters.

Here is who lives in this house:

1. My mother
2. My stepdad Mark (a.k.a. “The Cap’n”)
3. Scrabble

I walked into the kitchen this afternoon and saw Miss Scrabble in the position you can see in the above photograph. It is a difficult thing to simultaneously gasp, laugh, and try to not make a sound as you move slowly for your phone/camera in order to take a picture of a dog before she moves a single inch. In fact, this is a physically painful experience. But I did it. I got the shot.

It’s been beautiful since I got here late Friday. Crisp and clean, and better take a jacket.

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