Eton Mess
Mom and Dad on the QM2. Maybe 2017?
This post is going to be a mess. An Eton Mess. (See what I did there?). There’s a lot I want to say. My family is full of contradictions. During my childhood my father refused to buy normal swim trunks, eschewing them in favor of cut off jeans. He was discouraged from attending a lot of pools. He used to buy whatever eyeglasses were the cheapest, often ending up with those 1970s plastic ones with the bar across the top, frequently found on people who shouldn’t be within a certain distance of children. However, as Dad aged he started to care more about his appearance. He has a line he likes to use, “When a man gets older he should wear better clothes, and more of them”. All I know is that when it was time for us to join my parents on the Queen Mary 2 the first summer, Dad gave my husband money to buy a tuxedo with some very specific requests:
Pretty fancy for a former redneck, huh? Dad went from this:
Dad in the infamous cut offs at Conesus Lake, NY and in Kingsport, TN with his father and brothers.
To this:
Look at that pinky action! Tea at The Orchard in Cambridge, England.
My husband did alright! Here he is with my glamorous mother on the QM2.
This image has come back to haunt my father. Now that he is a fashionista he remarks that you should NEVER see a flash of the waistcoat under your jacket. He has since photoshopped this picture. I give you the original. ha ha
Mom always looked like a million bucks. She had no “athleisure”, or whatever the 70s equivalent, in her closet. Mom was always very polished and turned out.
How cute and fresh is she in this polka dot shift?!
Mom’s hair! A+.
She looks like the elegant Avedon model, Dovima, with that long, graceful neck.
But that didn’t mean that Mom couldn’t get down. Mom and Dad loved to dance. Anywhere there was music, they would dance. I mentioned in another post that I would often get reports from Chapel Hill friends saying, “I saw your parents out the other night. They were dancing, of course.”
Mom and Dad dance to the Zydeco Dots at my wedding in Houston. 2000. Note Dad’s truckstop shades.
I was just listening to a podcast which discussed movies that are defined by their soundtracks. An example they gave was The Big Chill. You can’t think about that movie without conjuring up an image of Boomers dancing in the kitchen to the Temptations. (On a side note, the host of the podcast, Sarah Marshall, offered an interesting theory that The Big Chill was simply The Breakfast Club grown up. Chew on that for a moment.) Thinking back to the soundtrack of my childhood movie, one album in particular comes to mind, To Bonnie From Delaney by Delaney & Bonnie. I was driving home from West Texas on Monday and “Miss Ann” came on my Spotify. BOOM. Transported. I suddenly had a bowl haircut and was dancing in the kitchen of the Mallette St. house with Mom, Dad and my sister after church on Sunday, unapologetically shaking my stuff.
Click the link above and give it a listen! Originally recorded by LIttle Richard, this Delaney & Bonnie cover features him on piano.
On a trip to West Texas maybe six or seven years ago, I got there a day before my friend and ended up going up to the famous Gage Hotel by myself to scrape up some dinner. I walked into the bar (pro tip: that’s where the locals eat) and it was packed. I thought I found a seat but was abruptly informed by a rude man that it was taken. This guy sitting at the bar watched the whole scene and said, “I can’t just sit here and let you stand. Have my seat and I’ll stand.” Like the Temptations in The Big Chill, I was not “Too proud to beg”, so I took it. Well, we started talking, as you do when you are in West Texas and someone is nice to you. I asked him what his name was. “Delaney”. I said, “as in Delaney & Bonnie?”. He said, “well, actually, YES. My parents were hippies and I was named after him.” Apparently not too many people these days recognize that name so he was a bit surprised. Next up? I asked, “Where are you from?”. He answered, “Tahlequah, Oklahoma”. I said, “as in the Ellen Gilchrist books?” Again, surprised, “yes”. It seems my mother had prepared me for this conversation. Mom and I both loved Delaney & Bonnie AND Ellen Gilchrist. I can pretty confidently lump my sister in there as a fan, too. One of Gilchrist’s characters, Olivia Hand, is the long lost daughter of a well-heeled Charlotte man, Daniel, and his first wife, a young Native American woman. Olivia lives in Tahlequah and there is a whole storyline there. I remember first coming across Gilchrist when visiting my parents on sabbatical in California. Mom had a copy of Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle, which I read while sleeping on the floor of their rent house. Anyway, the punchline of this story is that after a few drinks Delaney and I started talking to the lady on the other side of us at the bar and she asked us, “How long have you all been married?”. We laughed and said, “DUDE. We literally just met!”. But, I guess you could look kind of cosmically intertwined when you have this kind of stuff in common. Or she was just drunk. :)
Today I was watching The Great British Baking Show, another love my mother and I shared, and Paul Hollywood snarkily proclaimed that someone’s failed Pavlova looked like Eton Mess. You know what? Eton Mess is pretty great. Here’s Mom’s recipe:
ETON MESS
This recipe, inspired by the strawberry-and-cream dessert traditionally served at Eton College on 4th June, is great for nervous meringue makers – because the meringues are broken up, it simply doesn't matter if they weep, crack or collapse. So, you can practice making them over and over with this dish until you get them perfect and, at the same time, enjoy this amazingly good summer dessert. Don't forget, though, to make the meringues the day before you want to serve the pudding.
Serves 6
6 oz golden caster sugar (you can substitute granulated sugar)
3 large egg whites
1 lb fresh strawberries, hulled
1 rounded tablespoon powdered sugar
1 pint double cream
You will also need a baking tray measuring 11 x 16 inches, lined with a non-stick silicone mat or parchment paper.
First, have the caster sugar measured out ready, then place the egg whites in a scrupulously clean bowl and whisk until they form soft peaks that slightly tip over when you lift the whisk. Next, add the caster sugar, about a tablespoon at a time, and continue to whisk until each tablespoon of sugar has been thoroughly whisked in. Now simply take rounded dessert spoonfuls of the mixture and place them in rows on the lined baking tray. Place the baking tray in the oven on the centre shelf, turn the heat down to 275°F and leave the meringues there for 1 hour. After that, turn the oven off and leave the meringues in the oven to dry out overnight, or until the oven is completely cold.
When you're ready to make the pudding, chop half the strawberries and place them in a blender together with the powdered sugar. Whiz the whole lot to a purée, then pass it through a nylon sieve to remove the seeds. Now chop the rest of the strawberries and whip up the double cream to the floppy stage.
All the above can be done in advance, but when you are ready to serve, break up the meringues into roughly 1 inch pieces, place them in a large mixing bowl, add the chopped strawberries, then fold the cream in and around them. After that, gently fold in all but about 2 tablespoons of the purée to give a marbled effect. Finally, pile the whole lot into a serving dish, spoon the rest of the purée over the surface and serve as soon as possible.
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