The Lakewood Book Trotters met at Times Ten Cellar Monday evening  to discuss their latest read, Judy Blume’s “In the Unlikely Event.”

If you are not familiar with Blume, your children likely were as she wrote about issues and fears often associated with school age children, like “Blubber’ and “Fourth Grade Nothing.” One of Blume’s most famous books, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” is about a young girl who feels alone after a move to the suburbs and enrolment in a new school.  Margaret Simon, needing a friend, began conversations with God.

“In The Unlikely Event,” Blume recounts the three plane crashes that took place in Elizabeth, New Jersey, just outside of NewarkAirport in the early days of commercial aviation.

Set in 1951 and 52, community and family come together following the unlikely events of three tragedies in a short period of time.

As is a tradition of the Book Trotters, foods that were served in the story are served at the meeting. Deli foods often associated with the East Coast locale and likely enjoyed by the Jewish characters in the book were served at Monday’s book club. The women enjoyed smoked salmon spread, bagels, pastrami on rye, pickles and potato salad.  Desserts included rugelach made especially for the Book Trotters by the Sisters of Temple EmanuEl.

Salmon Spread from “Recipes and Recollections: Vickery Place Cooking Since 1911”

4 oz. smoked salmon or lox style salmon

1/3 cup finely chopped red onions

1-2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

1 (8-ounce) container sour cream or whipped cream cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Snipped fresh chives for garnishing

In a bowl, finely flake salmon.  Add onion, horseradish and sour cream Season with salt and pepper and let stand for at lease 15 minutes or refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Serve with crackers.  Makes 1 ½ cups.

Always a hit at parties, you may want to double the recipe.

“The House of Blue Leaves: by John Guare opened this week end at OnStage in Bedford. 

Set in the 1960‘s in an apartment in the New York City Borough of Queens on the day the Pope is coming to America for a visit, “The House of Blue Leavess” is  an excellent analysis of the desire to achieve celebrity status in our society 

Director Mike Hathaway shares in the program notes: “The playwright, John Guare, once wrote that the main theme of the play is one of humiliation, from which all comedy and tragedy stems.”  

“I disagree,” Hathaway continues.  “House peeks into the dark corners of the thirst for greatness, showing us a world where even nuns have the bug. I think we can all relate.  I‘d be willing to bet that at some point every person reading this had a hairbrush microphone and fantasized about appearing on T.V.“    

One thing is for sure, the often sad, always “crazy” characters kept you in stitches through out the evening. 

On-Stage in Bedford is a delightful venue located in the picturesque BoysRanchCommunity Center easily accessible off Highway 183. The small (97 seats) intimate (not a bad seat in the house) theater serves drinks and “the world’s best popcorn” in their lobby concession before the show and during intermission. 

For little more than the cost of a movie ticket (the popcorn is way cheaper) you can experience live theater in the Dallas Ft. Worth area at OnStage in Bedford. 

“The House of Blue Leaves: runs through August 30. “

Have you been seeing photos of fruit galettes this summer?  The fruit filled pastry has been pictured on the cover of gourmet food magazines like “Bon Appetit.”  Kroger featured one in their new “My Magazine” publication. 

If you have not seen pictures of the galette, they are a pie or tart without the pan.  The center exposes the fruit filling and the free form crust gives the pastry a rustic look— and do they ever say “summer.”

However, fruit is only one of the many fillings used in a galette. The term, galette, is  French and designates various types of flat round or freeform cakes or crusts.

Just like the “naked cake” that I wrote about last spring, seeing pictures of the galette got my attention, making me want to try my hand at one of these beautiful pastries.  I took cake decorating, but I never took pie making so I set about to find a person who I thought could produce the result I wanted.

Mary Ann Duckworth actually teaches sewing at El CentroCollege in downtown Dallas, but she is also known for her skills in the kitchen.

On many occasions Mary Ann has taken the role of “executive chef” at Central Christian Church, feeding 100 people for Thanksgiving Dinner and other special events.

What did I have to do to get my friend to agree to demonstrate how to make this eye and taste pleasing dessert?  I had to produce some ParkerCounty peaches.  That seems to be the peach of choice for many native bakers.  I called Hutton Farms in Weatherford and with their help located the peaches at Green’s Farmer’s Market in Arlington.  Sweet and juicy, they were perfect for our galette.

Mary Ann and I chose the commercial kitchen at Central Christian Church for our project so we would have plenty of counter space and opportunities for various angled photo shots.

Mary Ann began by preparing the peaches.  ParkerCounty peaches are freestone (the pit slips easily from the peach as opposed to a cling peach where the pit clings to the peach.)

This and the fact that the peaches were not peeled, just sliced into ¼ inch slices made preparation of the fruit filling really easy.

If you do have a recipe that calls for a peeled peach, drop the peach into boiling water just until the skin blisters and splits and then the peel will easily slide from the peach.

The sliced peaches were put in a bowl with the flour, sugar and vanilla and set aside. 

Mary Ann prepared the dough using a food processor.  She processed the dry ingredients with the frozen butter pieces until the mixture was coarse in texture.  Then she added ice water and continued to mix the dough until it pulled from the sides of the food processor bowl and formed a ball.

The dough was patted into a round disc and refrigerated. 

When it was time to roll the chilled dough, Mary Ann produced two pastry making tricks, one that she has relied on for many years—a rolling pin sock. The sock slips over the rolling pin and Mary Ann says it helps keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin.  The other item was a “Real Simple nonslip pie mat.”  The pie mat replaced waxed paper or a board for rolling the dough.  It also had a guide and size chart so you could determine the size of your pastry.  She purchased both items, the sock and the mat, at Bed Bath and Beyond.

When the pastry was rolled to a perfect round, Mary Ann wrapped it around the rolling pin and transferred it to a baking sheet that had been lined with parchment paper.

She arranged the peaches in the center of the dough and began to fold and pleat the dough to encase the peach mixture, leaving the center open to expose the fruit. She dotted the peaches with butter.

When the galette was finished, the dough was brushed with an egg wash and sprinkled with coarse ground sugar before being placed in the preheated oven and baked.

An added kudo to using the church kitchen for the pastry experiment was that Senior Co-Pastor Dr. Steve Chisolm was on hand to taste the end result. The peach galette won the pator’s approval.  And it was both beautiful and delicious!

This is an ideal way to take advantage of our local fruit. You can use the last of the summer berries by making a blueberry or blackberry galette.  Mary Ann has already suggested an apple galette to welcome fall.  The rustic free-form pastry with the sparkly, sugar dusting is so appealing.  I hope you will make one. The recipe follows.

Peach Galette Recipe

• Prep time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
• Cook time: 20 minutes
• Yield: Makes 8 servings.

Ingredients

Crust:

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 oz (1/2 cup, 1 stick, 8 Tbsp) butter, cut into small (1/2-inch) cubes, chilled in freezer at least 15 minutes, preferably an hour
• 4 to 6 Tbsp ice water

Filling:

• 2 large, not-overly-ripe yellow peaches (about 3/4 pound total), pitted, sliced into 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch slices
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp almond paste (optional)
• 1 teaspoon butter

• 1 egg
• A sprinkling of coarse sugar (optional)

Method

1 Make the crust dough. In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, and salt, until well mixed. Add the cubed butter, and pulse 8 times. The butter should still be the size of peas in the mixture. Slowly add the ice water, a tablespoon or two at a time, pulsing after each addition, until the dough just begins to clump. Turn out onto a clean surface. Use your clean hands to form into a disc. Do not over-knead. Work the dough only enough to bring it barely together into a disk. Sprinkle with a little flour on all sides, wrap with plastic, and place into the refrigerator to chill for an hour. 

2 Preheat the oven with the rack in the middle position to 425°F (220°C). Place the peach slices in a bowl and sprinkle with the flour and sugar. Toss gently to coat. Sprinkle vanilla extract over the peaches.

3 In a small bowl, whisk the egg until smooth and set aside.

4 On a lightly floured, clean, smooth surface, roll out the dough to about a 12-inch diameter. Gently lift up the rolled out dough and place it on a rimmed baking sheet.

5 If you are using almond paste (not necessary, but a nice addition if you have it), dot the middle 6-inch circle of the dough with the almond paste. (If you can spread it, great. Otherwise, just dot with little bits.) Arrange the peach slices in an overlapping pattern in a single layer in the center of the dough, forming about a 7 or 8-inch circle. Dot with a little butter.

6 Fold the outer edges of the dough round over the filling, by about 2-inches all the way around, in an accordion fashion. Use a pastry brush to coat the exposed dough with an egg wash (you can cook up the leftover egg as a little scrambled egg, by the way), and sprinkle with coarse sugar if using.

7 Place in the oven and cook for about 15-20 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet, over a rack, about 15 minutes.

Great served with a little vanilla ice cream.

Members of Central Christian Church met Saturday with members of other area Disciples of Christ congregations at Juliette Fowler Communities for the annual General Gathering of North Texas Disciple Women.

Following registration and coffee fellowship Sabrina Porter, President of Juliette Fowler Communities and Cindy Wabner, Director of Development at Fowler greeted guests.

After a short business meeting of Disciple Women’s Ministries the local chapter of Daughters of Abraham presented the program.

Founded in 2002, Daughters of Abraham was organized to breakdown the ignorance that propagates prejudice and intolerance within our world.

Following the events of Sept. 11, 2001,  Daughter’s of Abraham founder Janice Lord asked the question: “Is it possible to bring together a group of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women and see them progress from strangers into a close-knit sisterhood of tolerance, genuine respect, and love?”  And “If this could be accomplished, might it provide hope for world peace?”

Ask members of Daughter’s of Abraham that question today and you will likely hear about the impact the organization had had on their lives and their faith.

Dawn Anderson of Highland Park United Methodist Church, Zena Darwazeh of Mosque Islamic and Jazzmyn Blu Wilson of Temple EmanuEl  shared stories about their favorite meetings and topics as well as issues they are looking forward to visiting during future Daughter’s of Abraham meetings.

Darwazeh said she is frequently asked why she wears a headscarf as a cultural practice.  One of the upcoming meetings will discuss modesty and female beauty. 

Although the group does not discuss politics; sharing traditions, holidays and celebrations bring a greater understanding to these women of different faiths—Christians, Jews and Muslims.

They all pointed out their surprise in learning that beyond the differences, there is so much likeness in their traditions and the way they deal with life on a daily basis.

“’Oh, yes we do that, too,’ has become a common phrase among our group,” Anderson said.

If you want more information on Daughters of Abraham visit their website at www.daughtersofabraham-tx.org.

Central Christian church is located at 4711 Westside Dr. in Dallas.  Sunday worship is at 11 a.m. and all are welcome.

“People Who Changed the World, Theatrically Speaking” was the topic of the July lecture series on Dallas history at the Hall of State in Fair Park. 

“Theater is different in Dallas today than it was in the early years.  A current production at the Music Hall in Fair Park requires about a dozen 18-Wheelers to roll in the props, sets and costumes,” actress and author  Rose Mary Rumbley said.

 In the early days of Dallas theater all one needed for a production was a good looking man, a pretty girl, a clown, an old lady and a dumb blond.

The Madcap Players, a tent show directed by Neil Fletcher and performed on the grounds where City Place Target stands today had all those components

Portraying the “dumb blond” was Fletcher’s wife, Minnie. The band would play “Happy Days Are Here Again,” the curtain would rise and the script would go something like this:

Minnie:  “I’m staying at the Paul Revere Hotel and it is terrible.  I want to complain to Paul Revere.”

Straight man:  “He’s dead.”

 Minnie:  “Oh, I didn’t even know he was sick.”

Eventually the fire department closed the Madcap Players, but judging by the number of corny dogs consumed by State Fair goers in the years to follow, Texans didn’t hold the Madcap humor against Fletcher. 

Even though the tent gigs were over, Fletcher and his brother, Carl, were soon humming “Happy Days Are Here Again,” after their invention of the famous Fletcher’s Corny Dog.

Rumbley recalled the days when there was no television..

 “People had to entertain themselves and they did this by acting and singing,” Rumbley said.  “They read poetry and played the piano in the parlor after dinner.”

 Lessons in elocution were common so children could learn to project and enunciate.

 “Miss O. D. Woodrow, School of Elocution” was one of Dallas most famous speech and drama schools and Rose Mary Rumbley was a student. This began a life of show business for Rumbley and a career teaching speech and theater at Dallas Baptist University.

“In the very early days of Texas history, ‘Wild West’ shows travelled through the country,” Rumbley said.. 

These traveling shows were sponsored by products like Kier’s Cure All, which was oil discovered and bottled by Samuel Kier of Pennsylvania and tonics that were not much more than pure alcohol.

”Remember Hadacol?” Rumbley asked.  “It was alcohol and they ‘hadda call it something.’”

Vaudeville and burlesque were traveling shows with burlesque being the lower ranked of the two genres.

One of Dallas’ early vaudeville theaters remains alive and well today. The Majestic, first a theater, then a movie house, was beautifully restored and placed on the register of historic places.   The magnificent Majestic Theater is currently a cultural center for the performing arts.

 Not faring so well as the Majestic, as it no longer remains intact, was the “Happy Hour Theater” on down Elm Street where the early days of burlesque was performed.

In 1927 Dallas enjoyed the Starlight Operetta, an outdoor musical production.  Years later, the advent of air conditioning brought the operetta indoors and that was the beginning of the Dallas Summer Musicals.

In 1947 Margo Jones selected the MobileOilBuilding across from the Old Mill in FairPark and opened a theater, introducing theater-in-the-round. She produced and directed regional plays by newer playwrights like Tennessee Williams and William Inge.

The evolution of theater is an interesting subject as is most anything that has to do with show business. 

Theater brings joy, sorrow, tears and laughter to its audience and often leaves them asking for more or pondering what they just experienced.

 “We now have theaters all over Dallas, and the surrounding areas,” Rumbley reminded.  This gives Dallasites the opportunity to enjoy live productions in many locations, fitting many budgets—allowing more Dallas households to enjoy live performances.

The Brown Bag Lecture Series is hosted by The Dallas Historical Society and takes place at noon in the Hall of State in Fair Park on the first Tuesday of each month.  It is free to the public and everyone is invited to bring a brown bag lunch to enjoy during the lecture.

Rose Mary Rumbley Presents