Reflections of a Householder

Pond at the Minuteman National Park Visitor Center,
Lexintgon, MA

While getting caught up on my high school alumni notes this weekend, I read that that a former classmate was ordained in July as a Benedictine priest. This after years of exploring Eastern spirituality and then living at a monastery in the Mohave Desert.

It is difficult for me to reconcile this holy image with my memory of the teenager who would sit and talk with me at lunch about cars, guitars, and surfing (the three primary obsessions of any So Cal teen) and then carry my books as we walked to 5th period Civics. But I am happy for him, and incredibly impressed that he has committed himself so completely to his pursuit of truth. Congratulations, Father Cassian.

I, on the other hand, am shopping around for God, or (more precisely) a new spiritual home. As a Unitarian in Los Angeles, my options were pretty limited. My preferred church was a good 40 minute drive away. Between the commute and coffee hour (free-trade, of course), I was lucky to get back home by 2:00.

But now I find myself in Unitarian Central - there are six congregations within a 5 mile drive. For the first time, I can be picky. On a rainy Sunday a few weeks ago, I visited First Parish in Lexington, right on the Battle Green. With its tall white steeple, Hutchings pipe organ, and old cemetery out back, it is the quintessential New England Church. Yesterday, I attended services at the Follen Church Society, also in Lexington. Follen is the oldest standing religious structure in Lexington. It was also the site of Emerson's last regular preaching gig before he chucked it all for Transcendentalism. They've kept his pulpit all these years, and now the congregation's brand-new slip-of-a-thing Reverend Claire preaches from it every Sunday at 10:30. A self-described Jewnitarian, she gave a beautiful sermon yesterday about Yom Kippur, imperfection, and atonement. I like to think Emerson would have approved.

I couldn't bring myself to take photos inside the sanctuary, so I've taken a few from their website.

Follen Church Society
755 Massachusetts Ave.
Lexington, MA

The sanctuary was shaped like an
octagon so that church-goers could
see and hear the minister and each other
easily.

Detail of Emerson's pulpit. Originally, the pulpit was at pew-level
so that the minister was not above his congregants. 

In a sign of the times, the old Unitarian church building in Woburn is now the Satsang Center. I like to think that Emerson, who was influenced by the Vedas, would have approved of this as well.

Independent Study

I am currently enjoying an extended sabbatical. That is, I haven't quite convinced myself to look for a job yet (it's on my to-do list, I swear). Instead, I'm using up my new town's free services, first and foremost, the library.

Woburn Public Library,
aka Winn Memorial Library

Statue of  Benjamin Thompson.

Isn't it pretty? The architect was Henry H. Richardson, who also designed Trinity Church in the Back Bay of Boston. The statue out front is of Benjamin Thompson, a Woburn-born physicist who served as a soldier for the Loyalists during the Revolution. After the war, he moved back to London. Apparently, all has been forgiven, and he now keeps a careful eye on the courthouse across the street.

The book stacks in the morning light.

When I moved here, I pictured endless hours spent loitering on the upper levels of the stacks, like Burgess Meredith in that Twilight Zone episode before he breaks his glasses. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that the stairs to the upper level have been chained off. The lovely iron balconies have become too rickety (librarian's words, not mine) and only library employees are allowed up. My inner reaction? "That's not fair. That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was all the time I needed....*sob*."

But onward. I am now happily requesting and checking out books with abandon, everything from 84, Charing Cross Road to the Prose Edda. Let the semester begin!

Running and Eating (But Mostly Eating)

On Labor Day, I drove an hour and half through the (very un-summery) pouring rain to meet up with some friends for the Acushnet 4 Miler Road Race. Fortunately for us, the storm cleared for the race. Though the humidity was still oppressive, at least we didn't have to contend with soaking feet and the attendant blisters.

Acushnet is an old whaling town with a large Portuguese population. My own heritage is mixed (think vigorously shaken, not stirred), and some of my ancestors were Portuguese whalers from the Azores who made their way to Honolulu, Hawaii. On lazy Sunday mornings, my dad would often fry up a batch of the Portuguese deep-fried pastries called malasadas that he loved so much as a kid.

But then, everyone loves malasadas. You could say that malasadas are to Hawaii what beignets are to New Orleans. Leonard's is the most popular place to get them (though I like Liliha Bakery). 

Malasadas at Leonard's Bakery in Hawaii

In short, I have really, really happy memories of eating malasadas. As an adult, I would often pick up a box of malasadas when I visited my parents on the weekends, stopping by King's Hawaiian Restaurant or standing in line for the "malasada lady" at the Torrance Farmers Market. They were, though, never as good as the ones my dad tossed into a vat of lava-hot oil and then into a brown paper bag of sugar.

Before the race, I asked my friend's husband where I could get a malasada nearby. As luck would have it, there was a Portuguese festival running through the holiday weekend. We could get malasadas there! The line though, he warned me, could take as long as 2 hours.

After the race, we sauntered over the festival, tired, grungy, and stinky. Luckily, the line wasn't terrible - yet. When we got to the front of the line, we waited several minutes for our order to be filled, allowing us to observe the malasada-making process up close.

Bits of dough were patted out into discs (like a small pizza dough). Then, into the fryer they went before being coated with sugar.

The finished product looked like this:

Sweaty but happy.

Note the empty picnic table behind me. By the time we left (after eating other delicacies like clam cakes and linguica sandwiches), the line was at least an hour long and every available seat was taken. In fact, people were camped out on their own folding chairs.

If you happen to find yourself near Acushnet and there isn't a festival going on, I have it on good authority that the place to go is Lydia's. 

It must be fall because...

The Pumpkin Spice Latte is back!

The Merry Wife's Completely Non-Authentic Bermuda Rum Cake

Rum Cake on Johnson Bros. Rose Chintz platter.

Several years ago, my sister and her husband went to Bermuda for their honeymoon. When they returned, she raved about the pink sand, the Dark 'N' Stormy cocktails, and (best of all) the Bermuda Rum Cake.

The cake apparently has its origins in the Christmas plum pudding. As far as I can tell, it's a boozy Bundt cake made with dark-as-molasses rum. I've been tempted to order the real thing online from one of the several bakeries specializing in this cake, but so far, have just resorted to making my own. It's quite possible that I have completely misinterpreted the essence of the Bermuda Rum Cake, much like the medieval illustrator who, after hearing a description of an elephant, drew this strange looking monster:

Either way, it's a great excuse for me to break out a bottle of Gosling's Black Seal Rum.

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients for Cake

1/2 lb. butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups light brown sugar (packed)
5 large eggs
5 oz. evaporated milk
1/2 cup dark rum
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Ingredients for Glaze

1/4 lb. butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup rum

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and shortening. Gradually add the brown sugar while beating at medium speed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until just blended.

Stir together the evaporated milk and rum in a bowl. In another bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Alternately beat in the flour and milk mixtures to the butter and shortening, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Stir in the vanilla.

Grease and flour a 10-inch (12-cup) Bundt pan. Scatter pecans at the bottom of the pan. Pour in the batter. Give the pan a good tap on the counter to make sure that the batter has settled.

Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes. Then, remove the cake from the pan to the rack. Let the cake cool for 45 minutes.

For the glaze, melt the butter in a small saucepan. Stir in the water and sugar. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove the pan from heat and carefully stir in the rum.

Poke holes all over the top of the cake with a thin skewer, chopstick, or carving fork (the pecans will help disguise the holes). Slowly spoon glaze over the cake.* It will take several minutes for the glaze to soak in, so pour on a little at a time. Continue until all the glaze is used.

*Merry Husband suspects that superior results may be accomplished by injecting most of the glaze into the cake before pouring the rest over the top. So far, his theory remains untested.

One Last Hoorah for Summer

If only...

Well, here we are. One last chance to wear our white shoes, break out our most obnoxious Lilly shifts, and grill up various and sundry meat products in the great outdoors.

Except (today at least) the weather here isn't cooperating with my summer fantasies. Mother Nature has been reading the September Issue at the hair salon, and is craving tweed jackets and leather boots. Perhaps she will relent tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm up for good fun. First on the list:

Any movie involving Simon Pegg, evil robots, and pubs just has to be good, right?

Later this weekend, I'll check out the Fells, a 2,575 acre state park about five miles away. And on Monday, I'm meeting up with a friend to run a road race in the town of Acushnet, near the old whaling town of New Bedford. My legs have been cranky with me lately, so while I don't expect to race well, it will be nice to catch up with my friend with a cup of coffee later in the morning.

This summer was excellent, and I'm sorry to see it end. Everyone keeps telling me that fall in New England is glorious, so perhaps the turning colors will be a good consolation prize. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy that last little bit of summer this weekend!

An Afternoon at the Concord Museum

I'm slowing learning to adapt to life in the Boston suburbs. We've moved into the house that the Merry Husband bought several years before we got married and had rented out when he moved to California. It's an old house by my West Coast standards, built over 100 years ago by a turkey farmer. Over the years, parts of the house have been renovated so that the sleek Modern (granite counters!) now co-exists with the charming Vintage (radiators! original tile!) and the hopelessly Outdated (please tell me that is not my closet). 

Everything here seems infused with history. As I write this, I can look out the window at the wooded remains of the now-defunct Middlesex Canal, which connected the port of Boston to the Merrimack River 27 miles away when it was completed in 1803. In the mornings, my running route takes me past a cemetery that looks like a set for Sleepy Hollow and a library that could double for Hogwarts. When I have insomnia, the old bell tower in the town center lets me know just how late (or early) it is.

But our town pales in comparison to the two giants of American history next door, Lexington and Concord, birthplace of the American Revolution. On a recent afternoon, the Merry Husband and I visited the Concord Museum, which had opened its doors for free for the day

Museum Entrance

Here, you can see one of the two lanterns that hung in the belfry of the Old North Church on April 18, 1775, the night of Paul Revere's famous ride.

Concord was also home to a different kind of revolutionary, Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1930, the contents of Emerson's study were moved to an exact replica of the room inside the museum.

As someone who keeps a book of Emerson's essays on her bedside table, I was especially thrilled to see this part of the exhibit.

The museum also houses other "period rooms", including this mock-up of an early 18th century chamber.

This was a multi-function room, used for dining and
entertaining. When not in use, the dining chairs were pushed
up against the wall.

I should have asked the docent what paint was used in this room. To my eye, the color looked very similar to Farrow & Ball's Breakfast Room Green.

The "Mid 18th Century Chamber" featured a red and white Queen Anne easy chair that I would love to have in my own home.

I have a weakness for Staffordshire figures, so was very interested to see this one of Uncle Tom.

In the 19th Century Parlor, these figurines graced the fireplace mantle.

I enjoyed admiring the museum's architectural details almost as much as the museum's exhibits.

View of the museum across the lawn.

If you find yourself in Concord for a day, you can easily work in a visit to the Emerson House, across the street from the museum.

Louis May Alcott's Orchard House, a must-see for anyone who loves Little Women, is just down the road too. For lunch or dinner, stop by the Village Forge Tavern at the Colonial Inn.