It’s Ann here today. Andy is over in Our Little Corner with a blog that makes me tear up and makes me smile.
Should I be uncomfortable with the fact that we recently bought tickets to bring our children and grandchildren to see a Broadway play in which both Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, are made fun of? Are there some people (Lincoln, for example) whose reputations are too great to be “messed with”? If you’re not familiar with the Off-Broadway-now-On-Broadway play, Oh, Mary, let me share a few lines from reviews:
From The Guardian: in the play Mary is “an incorrigible drunk, a feisty thorn in her husband’s side, a nasty piece of work, a self-proclaimed ‘rather well-known niche cabaret legend’ and a total hoot.“
From The Chicago Tribune: “At times, it feels like you are watching an extended ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch making campy hay by deconstructing early U.S. history and imagining the battles of a closeted gay Abe (not so much of a stretch) and his unhinged spouse (no stretch at all).“
Cole Escola – who uses the pronoun “they” – plays Mary, and you’ll get a kick out of their visit with Oprah and the rest of the women on The View, discussing the play. (And – if you’re titillated by these reviews and are dying to see it yourself – Oh, Mary is playing at the Lyceum Theater in NYC through November 10.)
My blog title, “Better Angels,” refers to the much more familiar and serious side of the Lincolns.
It was March 1861; Jefferson Davis had just been inaugurated as President of the Confederacy; seven Southern states had seceded from the union. Times were unbelievably tense in the U.S. And Abraham Lincoln, who had been elected President of the U.S. in November, delivered his first inaugural address. The entire speech was eloquent but perhaps this is the most memorable part:
“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
It’s been almost 2 1/2 years since I wrote a blog “The Infinitesimal Speck” which mentioned “the better angels of our nature.” Andy likes that phrase because he likes Steven Pinker’s book about violence, The Better Angels of our Nature. But I was reminded of the phrase again during Barack Obama’s recent speech, when he urges us as a country to tap “the better angels of our nature.”
Enough reflecting. Here’s our pick for today’s recipe:
We’re already posted an Angel Food Cake recipe. A Devil’s Food Cake recipe would be very apropos for today’s political scene, but we’ve done lots of chocolate cake recipes already. So how about a recipe that was a favorite of Mary Todd Lincoln? Even if she was nasty, unhinged, and a drinker, I’ve read that she often made this cake for Abe because he loved it. That’s so sweet of her! Let’s just focus on her good qualities.
Mary Todd Lincoln's White Almond Cake
- Butter and flour for prepping the pan
- 2 c sugar
- 1 c (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
- 3 c flour
- 1 T baking powder
- 1 c whole milk
- 1 c blanched almond slivers, very finely chopped
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 6 large egg whites, at room temperature
- 3/4 tsp Diamond kosher salt
Preheat oven to 350°F
Lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan with butter and flour. Shake out excess flour and set pan aside.
Place the sugar and butter in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium until light and fluffy, 3 minutes. Set the bowl aside.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and sift 2 more times (or simply whisk the flour and baking powder together)
Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar in 3 additions, alternating with the milk.
Beat on medium speed until the mixture is just blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and fold in the almonds and vanilla. Set the bowl aside.
In a large mixing bowl, mix the egg whites and salt with clean beaters on high speed until stiff peaks form, 4 to 5 minutes.
Fold about a quarter of the beaten whites into the batter, just until combined. Then fold the remaining whites into the batter, just until combined.
Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 60 minutes or the cake is golden brown. To test for doneness, insert a toothpick into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done.
Remove the pan from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes.
Run a knife around the edges, give the pan a gentle shake, and invert the cake onto the rack to cool, right side up, 1 hour.
Slice and serve.