Tag: desserts

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cheesecake, Delores Brown

“For those gloomy days,” write Charles Britton in 1992, “when everything seems to be turning into dross, I have a note of encouragement to offer: We are living in the great age of cheesecake.”

His column, which was syndicated in newspapers across the country, remarked on cheesecake’s 1980s rise to stardom, citing the two latest books on the subject, as well as “a popular Southern California restaurant chain called the Cheesecake Factory.” In that article, Britton shared six recipes for different cheesecake variations.

Ten years earlier, Patricia Turner wrote in the Bridgewater Courier-News about two cheesecake cookbooks that were out at that time. Turner was somewhat less exhilarated about the possibility of cheesecake. Perhaps the golden age had not yet begun. Or perhaps it was the fact that Turner was on a diet and admitted to not having tried any of the recipes shared in her column.

One of those recipes was for a Peanut Butter and Jelly Cheesecake – a different version than the recipe that I encountered in “Country Classics Vol. 2,” a 1980s cookbook put out by the Old Friendship United Methodist Church in West Post Office Maryland.

This recipe’s contributor, Delores Brown, was too hard to pin down amongst the population of Worcester and nearby counties, despite the small size of the historic church she may have attended. All I know is that she shared this fun and slightly oddball cheesecake variation.

1934, 1933, 1935
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Pawpaw Pretzel Pie

I decided to do one last pawpaw recipe before the season is over. After last week’s pawpaw cream pie, I wondered what it would be like to cross it with strawberry pretzel salad.

When I approached the Two Boots Farm stand I felt a little bad. Colorful edible flowers sat alluringly displayed in plastic clamshells. Cartons of shisito peppers were laid out. Behind the pawpaw table, another table of offerings. When I reached out later, Elisa from Two Boots farm told me ” Yes, sometimes I think people oversee our flowers when they are hunting for the pawpaws (two very different customers really). But we do have a lot of social media followers that I suspect found us because of pawpaws but they started asking us for wedding flower quotes or joining our flower share. In September people flock to us for the pawpaws but if I look at the sales numbers cut flowers are still our best selling item this time of the year.”

I ended up working with pectin to make a vegetarian recipe that could easily be made vegan. It could also be made with milk gelatin (minus cinnamon) for those who don’t want to deal with the pectin.

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“Fudge-It,” Mary Pat Clarke

Writing about contemporary politicians invites commentary on grievances, which makes me hesitate to make these kinds of recipes. As a resident of Baltimore, it is hard to imagine how history will look from the future. I imagine some more objective version of myself reading over these accomplishments and failures, but honestly, even Baltimore politics of the 70s and 80s leave me a little bewildered.

Still, if constituent services is any measure of a councilperson’s effectiveness then there is little debating that Mary Pat Clarke had a long and successful career. A Baltimore Sun article about her December 2020 retirement belabored that point. A summary of her political career was bracketed with statements about how she would be remembered most for “fixing prosaic problems for residents.” Filling potholes and restoring streetlights is pretty uncontroversial.

Clarke was born Providence, Rhode Island in 1941. After earning degrees from Immaculata College and the University of Pennsylvania, she ended up in Baltimore with her family in the late 60s. According to a Sun article from when she was elected President of the Greater Homewood Community Corporation in 1971, Clarke then lived with her four children in the Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood.

After her election to Greater Homewood Community Corporation, Clarke was a regular fixture in the Baltimore Sun’s local news pages. GHCC operated a children’s summer day camp, organized Youth Corp cleanups of Wyman Park, and organized programming for Greater Homewood’s senior citizens.

Clarke’s husband J. Joseph Clarke had been a delegate who lost his seat to Joseph R. Raymond. In 1975, Mary Pat beat out Raymond for the New Democratic Club endorsement for city council. The Sun covered the endorsement as a bit of revenge. J. Joseph Clarke went on to be a developer in Baltimore. His company is responsible for many projects, including the demolition of the historic Southern Hotel.

After winning the council race, Mary Pat’s career in Baltimore City Politics lasted 45 more years. Those years included a mayoral run, work on various committees, two stints as Council President (and an earlier failed campaign for that office), a clash with the Harborplace Hooters, and various bills and stances, some worthy and some ill-advised. Which are which is up to your own discretion.

The Evening Sun, 1973. Caption: “MRS. CLARKE—With John, Susan, Erin and Jenny”
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Rose Geranium Cake, Mary B. Shellman

Note: This is the cake shown on my appearance on CBS Mornings, September 16, 2021

Robert H. Clark was one of the two-thirds of Civil War fatalities who died not from the violence on the battlefield, but of disease. The Canada-born Union soldier enlisted in the 7th Maine Infantry in August 1862 at the age of 23. He left behind his wife Mary Ann and one-year-old baby Henry Gilbert, and headed for Maryland. The Maine 7th took part in the Maryland Campaign and a battle at South Mountain, before fighting at Antietam, a significant and bloody turning point in the war.

Constant campaigning had cost the regiment the loss of many men. They returned to Portland, Maine through January of 1863 before reporting to Northern Virginia for more fighting, including the Union victory at the Second Battle of Fredericksburg. In June, the company would pass through Maryland on their way to the fateful battle at Gettysburg. As it happened, Robert H. Clark would never make it to Pennsylvania.

Sources differ on whether the young man had contracted typhoid or died from sunstroke. According to Lt. Colonel Selden Connor, men “fell out by scores… by the heat, dust and exertion” on the trip, some dying in the road.

Clark made it to a hotel in Westminster Maryland, where he was tended to by Mary Bostwick Shellman, a 14-year old who routinely volunteered with the care, feeding and entertainment of residents of the town almshouse. That day, the dutiful girl was caring for soldiers at the City Hotel, which was inundated with infirm soldiers passing through town between battles. She fanned Clark for hours, but it was in vain. Young Mary Shellman watched as Robert Clark died. She would never forget the experience.

lithograph by E. Sachse and Co. shows the 7th Maine Volunteer Regiment encamped at Patterson Park in 1861
Collections of the Bangor Historical Society
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Brown Stone Front, Mrs. Byron S. Dorsey

Mrs. Brown, the first-nameless protagonist of playwright Chandos Fulton’s 1873 novelette, responds witheringly to the news that a friend’s daughter has wed a man of modest means. “It was a love-match, I suppose,” her friend Mrs. Campbell told her, and Mrs. Brown “did not deign a reply.”

As the plot of Fulton’s novel unfolds, Mrs. Brown meddles in her own daughter Adele’s romantic life, breaking off a would-be “love-match,” to fix Adele up with a wealthier suitor. Adele’s marriage to the moneyed fellow is an unhappy one, and a scandal breaks out when people incorrectly suspect Adele of having an affair with another man. It turns out that Adele was just lonely, and when Adele’s cold-but-wealthy husband Mr. Dick comes to understand this, he becomes an ideal husband on command. Adele Brown and her ambitious busybody mother both get a happy ending. The original love-match man who broke Adele’s heart due to Mrs. Brown’s scheming in Chapter Four is never mentioned again.

Mrs. Brown’s desire for Adele to marry a wealthy man is symbolized by a status-symbol that serves as the book’s title: “A Brown Stone Front.”

Newspapers in New York City had been advertising “brown stone front” buildings for sale and rent since the 1840s. Other cities followed suit, and a “brown stone front” remained an attractive selling point in real-estate for the better part of the following century.

What was originally a cheaper and easier-cut alternative to marble and limestone became synonymous with success in America.

1890, Baltimore Sun
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