SUNSHINE & NOIR

I recently came across some photographs shot by photographer Thomas Michael Alleman on medium-format, black & white negative stock with Holga toy cameras. Sunshine & Noir is his book-length series of urban landscapes of Los Angeles and New York. I love these photos because they capture the underbelly of LA, the grit beneath the glitter.

"Sometimes my eye catches sight of a scene or object that seems “quintessentially LA”---or, writ larger, something about which you might simply say, “Yes, life’s like that!”---and I’ll make that photograph in the most straightforward, unmediated way I know, so that the viewer is confronted with the very basic fact of that situation. Most often, of course, “the thing itself” doesn’t yield much visual value, except as evidence that’s banal and unremarkable. But almost any object or scene can become a metaphor for something else---a stand-in for another object, or for a state-of-mind or a point-of-view. A child at play can put us in mind of an abstract generality like “innocence”, but one might also detect “greed” in certain games; a child might resemble a dancer in motion, or a drunk. Since these metaphors and similes (and visual puns) are part of a cultural construct---an ardent capitalist might see a neon dollar sign as a metaphor for great prosperity and health, while an avowed anarchist or socialist might curse the symbol’s power to enslave or sicken people---it’s helpful to have a quiver-ful of cultural references when striding into the social landscape. The more references one has in mind, the wider one can cast their visual net. As I wander a single block in Hollywood, I might encounter a hundred separate metaphors, similes and puns." - Thomas Alleman

The above is an excerpt from an amazing interview with Thomas Alleman by Lisa Hunter. You can read the rest of the interview on her blog howyoubuyart.

PETER PETER PUMPKIN EATER

Not all pumpkin pies are created equal. Most of us are used to the same old pie made from the recipe printed on the label of Libby's canned pumpkin. But how about a rich, sultry twist on the traditional pumpkin pie? I found just that on blisstree with Marye Audet's Pumpkin Pie Noir, so called not only for its intense color but for its dark and sticky caramelized filling. Her recipe calls for fresh pumpkin, roasted down until you're left with only its very essence. Mmmm... it just sounds so decadent.

Pumpkin Pie Noir

1 9-inch pie crust, unbaked

1 cup of roasted, caramelized, sieved pumpkin (*recipe below)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 brown sugar

3/4 cup heavy cream

2 tbsp bourbon

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and browned to dark brown

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

pinch of kosher salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs, beaten

candied ginger and confectioners sugar for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 450° F.
2. Add ingredients in order and beat well.
3. Pour into pie shell and bake 15 minutes.
4. Reduce heat to 375° F and continue to bake another 30 minutes, or until inserted knife comes out clean.
5. Allow to cool and serve with garnish.

Pumpkin Roasting Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F.
2. Remove the stem from the pumpkin with a sharp knife.
3. Cut the pumpkin in half, and scoop out the seeds and as much of the stringy strands as possible.
4. Place pumpkin on a cookie sheet flesh side up and roast for approximately 2 hours, depending on size of pumpkin. Be sure to check it often to make sure it's being caramelized and not charcoaled, although there will be some blackening specifically around the edges.
5. Remove pumpkin from oven and allow to cool. Once cool, remove the blackened parts. Scoop the flesh into a ricer or food mill. A food processor will give you a slightly different texture so mash by hand if you don't own a food mill.

NOBODY WALKS IN L.A.

"... the automobile is the handiest tool ever devised for the pursuit of that unholy, unwholesome, all-American trinity of sex, speed and status." - bruce mccall

In 1982 my brother's favorite band was Missing Persons, and he kept the record needle stuck on "Walking in LA". Back then I had no clue what that song actually meant but flash-forward to the year I moved to Los Angeles, and it became glaringly obvious. Seriously, nobody walks in LA. People will literally get in their cars, drive a couple of hundred feet, and re-park to get to the next shop on the same block. I guess Los Angeles has always had a mad love affair with cars, hitching itself early on the bandwagon of forward-thinking, progress, and modern convenience, after all, they gave us Googie architecture. From the time developer AW Ross bought a tract of land that became Wilshire Boulevard, the city has been built almost entirely around automobile travel with its mile-wide boulevards, drive-up and drive-thru consumer culture, and tangled network of freeways. Even in 1920 Los Angeles had more automobiles than any other city, and today there are more registered cars than people. The city still seems to be dictated by, and revolves around car accessibility. Even with public transportation, you feel like a virtual prisoner without your own set of wheels. And of course, driving alongside, on the fast-track to convenience and mobility, are the cons, namely smog and grid-lock traffic.

It's not just California that's a car culture, it's the entire country. Since it's invention the automobile has been woven into the fabric of what we call the American Dream - success, mobility, freedom, and control of one's own destiny. Cars became the nation's symbol of leisure, convenience, and security. From the beginning it promised us so much more than mere transportation. Even during the Depression people were reluctant to give up their automobiles. Car ownership was synonymous with self-respect, individuality, and prosperity. All the romantic mythology associated with the open frontier had transfered to the car. Roadside America with its neon-drenched diners, drive-in movies, last-chance gas stations, and route 66 was a visual proof of our ingenuity. James Morgan, author of The Distance to the Moon, A Road Trip Into the American Dream believes our love affair with the automobile is about "our bone-deep need for clean breaks and fresh beginnings, for self-reinvention, for fleeing the numbing grind of everyday existence."

downtown los angeles traffic, 1949, loomis dean

drive-in-restaurant, 1949, loomis dean

drive-in 3 minute car wash, 1949, loomis dean

drive-in grocery store, 1949, loomis dean

drive-in shoe repair, 1949, loomis dean

von's curbside grocery, 1949, loomis dean

drive-in services North Hollywood, 1965

drive-in movies, 1951, francis miller

photos via Life Photo Archive, historylosangeles

CAR NEEDS FIXIN'

Blue, my old but trusty Volvo, has been feeling under the weather lately. I dropped her off for repairs just before the sky cracked open, and dumped another load of rain down on us. Boy, when it rains, it pours. This pie's for when everything has gone to crap, there's nothing left to eat in the cupboards cause you can't get to the grocery store, and you need cheering up.

Fix Anything Pie

8 tbsp butter, melted

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup shredded coconut

1 tsp baking powder

1 can fruit, drained (peaches, apricots, berries, plum, etc.)

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. In a medium sauce pan melt the butter, take off heat and let cool.
2. Add sugar, egg, flour, shredded coconut, and baking powder until ingredients form a smooth dough. If it looks to buttery, add a little more flour.
3. Grease 8-inch or 9-inch pie pan. Press about 2/3 of the dough into the bottom and sides of the pan. Refrigerate and chill for 10-15 minutes to set.
4. Fill the pie shell with your choice of fruit. Use the remaining dough to crumble over the top of the fruit.
5. Bake for 30 minutes, until the dough is golden brown, but not dried out. Serve warm.

RIGHT AS RAIN

"Into each life some rain must fall." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Rain has hit the Southland. It started yesterday, and continued through the night, gaining strength with no signs of it letting up any time soon. Los Angeles usually averages about 15 inches of rain annually, winter and spring showers (November through April) which are generally light, but that at times comes down in torrential downpours scattering Angelenos every which way but loose as they duck from the rain, in fear of melting. Rain in LA is always accompanied by the sounds of sirens, police cars and fire trucks chasing accidents caused by lead-foots, or overly cautious and hesitant motorists, their wet road reflexes dulled with too many days of sunshine. The rains make the streets and freeways extra-slick, they bring flash-floods and mudslides. Glum faces stare out of car windows, a cacophony of grumblings vocal and rampant, as extracurricular activities are dashed until further notice.

For me rain isn't reason to gripe and groan. I find the rain strangely comforting, a catalyst for wistful recollections of times lost and found, a sentimental yearning for creature comforts, whether it's snuggling under warm bed covers, sipping hot chocolate, reading noon to night tucked into the corner of an inviting couch, or calling in sick for a marathon of movies. The comfort in knowing your buffeted inside, dry and cozy. The driving wet sounds, background accompaniment to lazy-day indoor activities. Splatters, drizzles, drips, swishes and splashes, insistent rooftop pitter-patter plops, a tap-tap-tap on the windows begging to be invited in. It's a rain of remembering and forgetting, a baptism of renewal and rebirth, a cleansing, a washing away of the past, starting anew, a do-over. Rain in its infinite roles offers redemption, even as it stings, a flagellation that whips down upon our heads, and leaves an indelible trace to our skins. Grey skies that hang overhead, in a sifting of rain, or buckets poured in torrents, they sweep sidewalks clean of grime and disillusion. Spitting rain, contempt for the day-to-day minutiae, a drizzle or a whispering of long lost secrets, a sheet of mist burying us beneath a blanket of promises. Rain, beautiful but fickle rain.

MELT LIKE SUGAR

Cassonade (or vergeoise) is a special brown-colored, free-pouring sugar found in France. It's very similar to raw, or turbinado sugar. The following recipe was modified from a popular Flanders (region in Northern France) recipe to swap out vergeoise for raw, or light brown sugar. Serve it warm alone, or paired with ice cream or fruit for an extra yummy treat.

Tarte Au Sucre (Sugar Pie)

for the crust:

1/3 cup milk

1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

2 cups flour

1 egg

1/4 cup white sugar

6 tbsp softened butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 tsp salt

for the topping:

3/4 cup raw sugar (or light brown sugar)

2 eggs

1 cup heavy cream (whipping cream)

2 tbsp butter

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until just warm to the touch. Remove from heat, and stir in the yeast until completely dissolved.
2. Place the flour in a mixing bowl and make a large well in the center of the flour. Into the well, add the egg, sugar, butter, salt and milk. With a sturdy wooden spoon, start mixing the ingredients until it becomes a stiff dough. Requires a strong arm to ensure all is well blended.
3. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and leave the bowl in a warm place to rise. Let rise until double the volume. Depending on warmth of room, and activeness of yeast, could take 1 to 3 hours.
4. Once the dough has risen, use your finger tips to fit it in the bottom of a 10-inch pie tin. Turn the oven on to 400°F and let dough rise again fro 15 minutes while the oven is warming.
5. Sprinkle the dough evenly with the raw sugar. Whisk the 2 eggs and then whisk in the heavy cream just until mixed. Pour mixture on top of the sugar topped dough. Cut the final 2 tbsp of butter into about 20 tiny pieces and place evenly atop the pie.
6. Bake at 400° F for 25 minutes. Serve warm.

HALF-BAKED

"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." - Frank Lloyd Wright

Fallen stars

broken dreams litter,

Hollywood Boulevard.

Marquees flicker

immortality burnt,

on celluloid.

Folded corners

picture-perfect postcards,

collect dust.

BANOF-WHAAA?

Juliet: Banoffee pie?

Mark: No, thanks.

Juliet: Thank God. You would've broken my heart if you'd said yes.

Mark: Oh, right. Well, lucky you.

Love Actually happens to be one of those films that I never get tired of watching. Before this film I'd never even heard of banoffee pie. For some inexplicable reason I always imagined it to be some awful tasting savory pie I'd never want to try. Then this past Christmas I was invited to a dinner party and for dessert the hostess baked... you guessed it, banoffee pie. Who knew this strange sounding pie would turn out to be so deliciously decadent? The mystique of this dessert is only heightened by its variations in spelling (also banoffi, or banoffy), disagreements of origin, and multiple versions of the recipe, elevating the pie to almost cult-like status among banoffee connoisseurs.

What is it exactly? Banana and toffee pie topped with whipped cream with a sprinkling of shaved chocolate...

Banofee pie is an English dessert that "evolved" at The Hungry Monk restaurant in East Sussex by Ian Dowding and Nigel Mackenzie. The recipe was originally revealed in The Deeper Secrets of the Hungry Monk in 1974. The dish spread, becoming a British staple and in 1994 a number of supermarkets began selling it as an American pie, leading Dowding and Mackenzie to offer a £10,000 prize in the Daily Telegraph to anyone who could disprove their claim of invention. That's how serious folks are about banoffee pie. Now go see what all the fuss is about...

(recipe and photo courtesy of Deelish Dish)

Banoffee Pie

1 14-oz package digestive biscuits

8 tbsp butter, softened

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

3 large bananas

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

1. To caramelize the toffee, boil UNOPENED condensed milk can into a pot filled with water, bringing the water line almost to the top of the can. Boil for 3 hours, carefully watching to make sure the waterline doesn't drop by adding water to the pot (if the water gets too low or evaporates, the can will explode!). Let the can cool completely before opening, then pour into a bowl. Chill in fridge for at least an hour.
2. Process the digestive biscuits in a food processor until crumb-like. Mix crumbs with softened butter and press mixture into a 9-inch pie plate. Bake for 10 minutes.
3. Once the crust is cooled, pour toffee filling inside and spread evenly. Slice the bananas and layer on top of filling. Whip the cream and layer on top of filling and bananas. Chill in fridge. To serve, sprinkle with chocolate shavings or dust with cocoa powder.

SLICE OF LIFE

"The violet hush of twilight was descending over Los Angeles as my hostess, Violet Hush, and I left its suburbs headed towards Hollywood. In the distance a glow of huge piles of burning motion-picture scripts lit up the sky. The crisp tang of frying writers and directors whetted my appetite. How good it was to be alive, I thought, inhaling deep lungfuls of carbon monoxide."

- Strictly from Hunger by S.J. Perelman

There's something about baking that in its very nature is a conundrum. It is both science and art, a contrary craft that is exact in a multitude of variables yet also requires the baker to be unrestrained in both his approach and imagination. Especially in creating a new recipe. Mastering this opposing friction of restraint and abandonment can make the difference between a mediocre offering and a mouthwatering dessert.

Baking for me is a metaphor for life, in how we navigate the myriad ins and outs of doors opening and closing in our salacious yearning to "suck out all the marrow of life". We use distractions like cotton-wool to silence the inner voice that begs to be set free, wild and loose upon the world. So easily swayed by the disapproving opinions of those who themselves are trapped in gilded cages. What we fail to understand is that self-creation is a subtle balance between restraint and abandonment. We must first master discipline before we can fling our souls out into the world. But it is fluidity, the means by which we ebb and flow, that will in the end cushion us from the sharp careening precipices on the road to self-discovery. We must learn to bend, so we do not break. But it is only by surrendering that we truly learn to fly.

"Flying" - Photography by Wayne Levin

APPLE IN YOUR EYE PIE

“Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.” – Jane Austen

There's nothing more American than apple pie. Its the quintessential American foodstuff, the symbol of American bounty, ingenuity, and simple good taste. In its original medieval English form "pie," like its French counterpart "pate," meant bits and pieces of meat baked in pastry. It's named after the magpie, a bird known for collecting odds and ends. Over time this catchall savory evolved into the sweet, firmly crusted open-faced tarts of rhyme and fable, arriving in North America with colonists, where the crust became more tender and flaky, the fillings were topped with meringue or a second crust, and the pie was served in its baking dish, not removed from the pan like in the old country. - Excerpt from the article Crust never sleeps by Matthew Stafford

Double Crust Pie Dough

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

8 tbsp vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, chilled

12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces, chilled

1. Process flour, sugar, salt in processor until combined. Scatter shortening over top and process approx. 10 seconds until texture is like course sand. Scatter butter pieces on top, short pulses, process mix until like coarse crumbs, approx. 10 pulses. Transfer to bowl.
2. Sprinkle 6 tbsp of ice water over mixture. Stir, and press the dough together with a stiff rubber spatula until dough sticks. Add another tbsp if dough doesn't come together.
3. Divide dough into 2 even pieces, flatten into 4-inch disk. Wrap in plastic, and put in fridge for 1 hour. Let soften slightly at room temp before rolling out.

Apple Pie

2 lb Macintosh apples (4-6) peeled, cored, 1/4 slices

1 1/2 lb Granny Smith apples (3-4) peeled, cored, 1/4 slices

3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp of all-purpose flour

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp lemon zest

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 egg white, beaten

1. Preheat oven 500° F. Toss apples with 3/4 cup sugar, flour, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, spices. Set aside.
2. Roll out bottom crust into 12-inch circle. Fit dough gently down into pan. Trim pastry with scissors about 1" beyond the edge of the pie pan. Spread apples in uncooked pie crust bottom. Roll out top crust into 12-inch circle. Lay over top crust. Trim edges to same length as bottom crust. Fold and tuck under edges. Brush with egg white, sprinkle with sugar.
3. Lower oven to 425° F. Bake for 25 minutes, or until top crust is golden. Rotate pan and lower oven again to 375° F and bake another 30-35 minutes until liquid is bubbling. Cool.