MY MUSE

This September I Remember: Summer’s Gifts for Fall

September 24, 2013
SEPTEMBER APPLES

September temperatures in Malibu climbed into the low
nineties. Beach visitors flocked to Malibu via PCH which fed thousands to our surf. One weekend more
than 5000 participants biked, swam and ran in the Malibu triathalon. Another
weekend more than 550,000 beach worshipers were accounted for. Come late
September weekday beach activity proves sparse until the school bells ring and
the workday is done. Locals make it to the ocean with or without wetsuits and REJOICE
in extra glorious beach time and sunsetviewing. In the coming weeks I will put the best of summer behind me and anticipate the bittersweet moments of seasonal change.

This year, the week before autumn became official, amidst
Yom Kippur and alongside the sad acknowledgment of 9/11, (punctuated by the
stunning Pepperdine Flag Memorial), my deeper thoughts embraced those I have
personally loved and lost, and my heart saluted those who have been sacrificed
to the travesties of war. Even though I am accustomed to the
anniversary of this ritual I am still surprised by the depth of the accompanying emotion.

PEPPERDINE FLAGS

Late September also feeds my observations with familiar and comforting signs of the seasonal change. Spider webs collect in the crevices
of doorways, the house gutters are thick with fallen leaves, shadows draw long across
the lawn, the pumpkin squash is fattening in the vegetable garden, and the
orchard is full of apples and figs.

APPLE PICKER

The annual harvesting of apples is for me a reminder of the physical and
spiritual sweetness of life. Not just for the fruit itself, but the going and doing and the company I keep in the doing. What can be better than to be surrounded by our dogs as we pick several pounds
of apples and turn them into a favorite Italian recipe known as Torta Di
Mele.

Translated into “apple cake” or “apple pie” or “apple tart” the Torta Di Mele recipe we make is really more of a tart. It is typical of an Italian desert in that it is not (ironically!) terribly sweet. The corn meal that coats the ramekins in which the apples and
batter are poured creates a delicately sweet grainy taste in an old fashioned
way. In truth, it is my husband who learned the recipe from an Italian chef; in
fact it is my heart, my tummy and my soul that gets fed! Mille grazie per Torta
di Mele!

RUBY, THE APPLE PICKER HELPER

Torta di Mele

5-6 four inch ramekins

5 Granny Smith apples

3 large eggs

1 ¼ c sugar

1/3 c + 1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour, SIFTED

6 Tbsp. butter – just melted

½ c heavy cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven 350°
2. Coat 5-6 four inch ramekins with butter and thoroughly dust with cornmeal. Set aside.
3. Peel, core and quarter the apples. Slice quarters very thin and store in a bowl (squeeze some lemon juice over apples to prevent discoloration).
4. In a large bowl and using a mixing spoon, mix eggs and sugar; mix in flour, then the butter, cream and vanilla.
5. Add apples to batter and mix all together.
6. Spoon apple mixture in to each ramekin making sure to press down with the back of the spoon to pack each ramekin with the mixture.
7. Place ramekins on the bottom oven rack and bake 50 minutes. Then, move ramekins to the middle rack and bake for about another hour. If the torta is getting too brown, cover
  with parchment paper.
8. Insert a toothpick in the middle of a ramekin and remove. If it comes out “dry,” remove ramekins from the oven and let cool.
9. Use a knife to loosen the torta from the sides of the ramekins. Turn over on a plate and remove the ramekin.
10. Slice each torta in half to get two servings per ramekin (unless you are really hungry!).
11. Serve plain or with some vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, fresh berries, or caramel
  sauce.
Malibu Farm @ the pier

August 31, 2013

Down the creaky pier planks and past the buckets of bait:
surfers to the North and Paddle Boarders to the South, and across from the
tackle shop, Helene Henderson’s “MALIBU FARM@ the pier” opened at the Malibu
Pier on Friday morning, kicking off a HOT Malibu Labor Day weekend.

Smart and spanking new the cafe's white clapboard boathouse appearance, blue trimmed windows and potted lavendar plants will simply charm. The cafe's straightforward sign resembling a school house chalkboard with the welcoming words: "MALIBU FARM@the pier" beckons the discriminating aesthete, the curiously hungry and the stubborn foody seekers. Inside, steel ship
gray painted windowsills, solid wooden tables and zinc trimmed light fixtures, chairs and counter will warm the heart. Under a boathouse window a bucket of loose flowers
capture the morning light. On an opposite wall hangs a
seasoned handmade magazine “rack” made of corkscrew holes to keep a grip on rolled
up local journals. The interior and
exterior of “Malibu Farm @the pier” is a visual natural as it blends into and
complements our Malibu Pier and casual lifestyle. Its style authentically hearkens a classically simple Swedish boathouse
that yacht and fisherpersons, sailors and sea lubbers embrace. Surfers will
dig it too.

The Scandinavian feel of the café and its menu cannot be left to coincidence,
for it is in Sweden that Ms. Henderson spent much of her youth acquiring a keen
understanding of food and its’ preparations while cooking and baking alongside
her Swedish grandmother. Smart grandmother, for Ms. Henderson has a gift and if
you don’t believe me, pick up a copy of “The Swedish Table,”(U. of MN Press,
2005), penned by Henderson herself.

Henderson is something of a legend in Malibu, supported by a
legion of “MALIBU FARM” devotees. Culinary students, mothers and
children, husbands and friends, the plainspoken and outspoken, all have feasted
on the hearty farm to table dishes made up of ingredients from Henderson’s backyard
and crafted with her healthy and elegant know-how. Her varied clientele is a
testimony to this chef’s cooking mantra of “fresh, organic, and local.” I’ll add:
tasty, light, original, and satisfying. I am assured Henderson's commitment to good food will not be compromised by the canon of press and magnanimous public positioning her MALIBU FARM warrants. She will stay loyal to the humility of her cooking style.

Now that Chef Henderson has brought in son Casper Stockwell to secure
the ranks, and his special cocktail concoctions once dinner is introduced, one can’t help but delight in the possibilities the café will
provide. Breakfast! Lunch! Eventually dinner! Fresh watermelon juice, quinoa
oatmeal with maple syrup and coconut milk, Swedish mini pancakes with whipped
cream and berries! Crab cakes and capers aioli! Valkommen!
Little Free Library

August 1, 2013

“Little Free Libraries” are
popping up all over the country, including Malibu

http://www.littlefreelibrary.org

A distant cousin to the idea
of a one room school house, Little Free Libraries offer the gift of literacy,
an opportunity to learn, and a place to gather with likeminded. As with any
worthwhile community service endeavor, this literacy campaign reinforces a
spirit of generosity and the reminder that a community can share. And with the
words “Take a Book, Leave a Book,” the Little Free Library “book trading posts”
delivers that message, and more immediately, complete satisfaction for the insatiable book browser,
such as myself.

My husband and I discovered
our first “pop-up library” in Pt. Dume on a Sunday morning constitutional. I clucked and he “ahhd” as we examined the street-side, basic two by four shelves
that were nailed to a post in front of the neighbor’s house. There was a
charter number indicating a legitimacy of some sort for the book bank, and a
sign telling us to take or leave a book. A lending library, we immediately understood,
and later learned this neighborhood book exchange program was the brainchild of
a man who built the first book “noox” in front of his house in Hudson,
Wisconsin. It was like a shrine to his mother, a schoolteacher who simply loved
books.

Ingenious and old fashioned,
local and charming, and a pure concept for book circulation, the idea has caught
on with an estimated 5000 registered “Free Little Libraries” around the world. They
serve as libraries where there are none, and they have replaced libraries where
once there were. There’s a buzz about it: CNBC did a story on it and you can
track GPS coordinates to locate one nearest you. Should you choose to build
your own you can out of recycled materials, as so many others have, including
old telephone booths, doll houses and car parts. I visualize one made out of
surfboards, and epoxy, and I might call it “The Book Hut,” with an adjacent
sign that would instruct all the kahunas to “Take A Book, Leave A Book.”

Back to the books: I randomly
selected a novel by Mary Gordon that happened to have been inscribed by a long-time
Malibu friend who died a few years ago. Her daughter told me that her mother
did not believe in holding onto books, that she felt they should be shared.
Hence she gave them away regularly as must have been the case with the one that
has turned out to be my favorite summer read.

If I ever do build that Little Free (surfboard) Library, I might dedicate it to my longtime Malibu friend, and to her philosophy of sharing.