Month: February 2008

The other day, I picked up a magazine that I’ve never bought before – Taste of the South. I’ll probably never buy another issue, but I got a giggle out of one of the features – a contest they did to find recipes using Krispy Kreme doughnuts. One of the recipes, really(!), was for a Krispy Kreme cheesecake.

Whatever you’re thinking right now, I was probably thinking it too. All those things.

But then, I was like, you know…Av and I like to do these funny themed suppers and I know just the theme that this one would be perfect for (think pink flamingos and beer can chicken). Plus, when I looked at the recipe, there are 12 doughnuts that go into the crust plus 2 filled doughnuts for the middle. So if the average cheesecake is cut into 16 slices, one slice means you are taking in a little less than one Krispy Kreme per serving.

I’m not sure how much better that makes it sound.

I knew it was going to be super-icky or super-great.

It was super-great.

I changed up the original recipe a lot – here’s my version:

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. melted butter, plus a bit more (unmelted) for pan
3 handfuls pecan halves
1 dozen Krispy Kremes
2 chocolate glazed icing filled doughnuts
12 oz. white chocolate
4 8-oz packages cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
4 eggs
1 tbsp. flour

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350*. In the bottom rack of the oven, place a pan 1/2 full of water.

In a 10″ springform pan, cover all inside surfaces with foil, then butter the foil.

Chop the pecans until they are in small-small bits. Cover the bottom of the pan with pecans, and drizzle the melted butter over.

Cut the dozen doughnuts in half, press 7 of them into the bottom of the pan. I used a paper towel to cover my hand and I pressed them until they were thin and no foil shone through. One doughnut I tore into little pieces to fill in any bare spots. The other doughnuts were pressed in and used to line the sides of the pan all around:

In the microwave, melt the white chocolate.

In the Kitchenaid, beat together the cream cheese and sugar until well blended, then flour, vanilla, melted chocolate, eggs and egg yolks just until it comes together.

Pour half the mixture into the springform pan, place the two chocolate icing filled doughnuts (cut into pieces) in the batter, then top it with the rest of the batter and smooth:

In the oven for 55 minutes:

After 55 minutes of baking, it was nice and brown on top. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside for another 45-60 minutes. It can be served later once it gets to room temperature, or be put into the refrigerator to get nice and cool:

I sent Av off with great big pieces of cheesecake to give away…but I saved a couple of slices for him. He loved it!

I guess once a decade…or maybe…once ever is alright. It really was good.

This week I made a batch of creole cream cheese for a cheesecake I’m going to make later this weekend. Usually I buy it at Dorignac’s but it’s really easy to make at home. I use the recipe from my Arnaud’s cookbook, but it’s generally the same in any cookbook you go by.

Ingredients:
1 gallon skim milk
1 cup buttermilk
2 rennet tablets or 8 liquid rennet drops
–you can half this recipe if you want to

Directions:

Dissolve the rennet tablets in 1/2 cup of warm water. They will fizz and with a little stirring, disappear.
Get out a *huge* glass or stainless bowl (not aluminum) and combine the rennet water, buttermilk, and milk. Stir well to combine, and cover with Saran:

This will need to be on the counter (not in the refrigerator) for anywhere from 24-36 hours, to give it time to separate into curds and whey.

After it’s separated, take a giant colander and line with a couple of layers of dampened cheesecloth, and place into the sink. Carefully pour everything into the colander. Lots of the whey will drain out:

Once it’s ready, put the colander into a roasting pan (cover it all with Saran again), and put it in the refrigerator.

The first day, lots more whey will come out, so empty the roasting pan whenever you check on it:

After about 48 hours, the creole cream cheese will be ready to use:

Using a spoon, scoop it out into a bowl – see how nice and shiny and wet it is? That’s good creole cream cheese. It can be used for up to a week (just keep it covered with Saran in the refrigerator).

It’s nice for breakfast with a tiny splash of half & half, a sprinkle of sugar, and some fruit. This was my breakfast this morning:

I’ll be using it to make creole cream cheese cheesecake in the next day or two. Yum!

The pr firm for the Gee’s Bend quilters sent me a release that AT&T commissioned some of the Gee’s Bend quilters to make a quilt to commemorate Black History Month. It’s the quilt pictured above.

Below is the full press release:

Quilt Celebrates the Spirit and Contributions of African Americans

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 13, 2008 — To commemorate Black History Month, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has announced the unveiling of a specially commissioned quilt that celebrates the spirit of African Americans and highlights the unique talents of the renowned Gee’s Bend Quilters.

The AT&T Gee’s Bend Quilt, which measures 95 inches by 82 inches, was created by 46 members of the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective and features colors based on the AT&T brand palette. The artists, ranging in age from 19 to 90, worked together for more than 250 hours to complete the artwork, which is destined to become a part of black cultural history. The quilt symbolizes the individuality of the quilters and their multigenerational approach to African American art and culture. During February, the quilt will tour the U.S. and make stops at AT&T locations in Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Detroit; Los Angeles; Chicago; and St. Louis. The tour will be supported by members of Community NETwork African American Telecommunications Professionals of AT&T, who will provide visitors with the history of the Gee’s Bend Quilters. Ultimately, the quilt will be donated to the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). (Details of market visits which begin on February 18 will be available shortly).

“The collaboration with the Gee’s Bend Quilters has given us the unique opportunity to create a piece that will help not only to tell their story but to highlight the important cultural contributions of African Americans,” said Tracy McDade, AT&T associate director of Multicultural Marketing. “As we celebrate Black History Month, we hope this will be a tool that inspires people to preserve and pass on their traditions.”

“Working with my mother, Leola Pettway, on our two squares for the commissioned quilt for AT&T was wonderful because it brought back memories of the old days, when we went from house to house quilting with all the women,” said China Pettway, member of the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective and member of the board of the Gee’s Bend Foundation. “We sewed our history right into this quilt and are proud to celebrate Black History Month. This gave us the chance to sit with a large group of the women, singing and sewing together.”

Quilts made by Mary Lee Bendolph, a member of the collective, were featured in an AT&T broadband marketing campaign that was introduced last summer and included television, direct mail and Internet ads. As part of that campaign, AT&T also sponsored a three-city Gee’s Bend Quilters tour to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, featuring appearances by several quilters.

The Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective is a group of more than 50 women who live in Gee’s Bend, Ala. The history of quilting in Gee’s Bend dates back to the 1800s, when the women of Gee’s Bend — which remains a small, isolated, all-black rural community outside Selma, Ala. — developed a style that featured distinct, bold, sophisticated designs. Blending the cultural influences of the area — European, American Indian and African aesthetics — the unique style and designs of the Gee’s Bend Quilts have been developed and passed down through many generations. The quilts are internationally acclaimed — The New York Times pronounced the quilts as “[among] the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.”

AT&T’s long heritage of serving the African-American community stems from the company’s commitment to diversity at every level. The relationship with the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective is just the most recent commitment to celebrate and preserve African-American culture. The company also invests in cultural events, such as San Antonio’s Beyond the Dream celebration to commemorate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Additionally, AT&T’s activity has been recognized, with more than 20 notable diversity awards in 2006 and several distinctions last year, including being named 2007 Corporation of the Year by 100 Black Men magazine and being ranked No. 1 among DiversityInc magazine’s Top 10 Companies for African Americans.

About The Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend

Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times on the site of cotton plantations owned by Joseph Gee, the town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Modern Art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through multiple generations to the present and in 2002, an exhibition of 70 quilt masterpieces from the Bend, organized by Tinwood Alliance of Atlanta, Georgia, premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Since then, “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” exhibition has been presented at more than a dozen major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Newsweek, NPR, CBS News Sunday Morning, House and Garden, and Oprah’s O Magazine are just a few of the hundreds of print and broadcast media organizations that have celebrated the quilts and history of this unique town. Art critics worldwide have compared the quilts to the works of important modern artists, such as Henri Matisse, and the New York Times called the quilts “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.” For more information, visit http://www.quiltsofgeesbend.com.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T operating companies, are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. Among their offerings are the world’s most advanced IP-based business communications services and the nation’s leading wireless, high speed Internet access and voice services. In domestic markets, AT&T is known for the directory publishing and advertising sales leadership of its Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM organizations, and the AT&T brand is licensed to innovators in such fields as communications equipment. As part of its three-screen integration strategy, AT&T is expanding its TV entertainment offerings. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com.

This weekend, we spent a day in Atlanta, and the first thing we did was go to the High. They had some special exhibits going on, like LouvreAtlanta – The Louvre and the Ancient World, and Georgia O’Keefe…but of course our favorite part was the folk/vernacular art section of the museum.

They had several pieces by Jimmie Lee Sudduth, Mose T, Bill Traylor, Sam Doyle, Mattie Lou O’Kelley:

There were two Gee’s Bend quilts:

Lonnie Holley:

This is by Eddie Owens Martin (St. EOM – the man that built Pasaquan! It took me a minute to figure out that this was St. EOM when they gave his full name in the title) and is called “Pasaquoyan Man with Ritual Headress and Levitation Suit”:

Thornton Dial’s “Heading for the Higher Paying Jobs”:

*lots* of Howard Finster:

Shug had the *best* time – here he and Daddy are in the Howard Finster area:

Next we were off to lunch at The Colonnade:

…which totally won me over because they had aspic on the menu. Their vegetables/sides (between the two of us we had aspic, rutabagas, dressing, and collards) were sooo good!

After all that, it was time for Ikea:

Av and Shug tried out the Ektorp chaise lounge (only $349 & soooo comfortable!):

…and some of the Ikea cabinets are really getting to look more and more like those super-high-end European sets:

Ah, I wish we had new cabinets. I think the ones we have are original to our house, and when I look at the ones at Lowe’s and Home Depot they have all these neat little features… Maybe we should make that our next big project.

The linens they had in the children’s section at Ikea were *so* cute. We wound up buying two duvet covers and a small blanket for Shug, and five fleece throws (just look at the designs on the children’s linens in the pic below!). The throws were much less expensive than I could buy them at in yardage at the fabric shop, and out of these I’ll make one or two reverse appliqué blankets similar to the ones I made a couple of years ago.

Ikea charges for plastic bags now(!), so we bought two of the huge blue bags for $.59 and were able to get everything out in one of those.

The last thing we stopped for was on the way back home – it was something we saw from the highway. This is the Coldwater Covered Bridge at Oxford Lake. It was built in 1850 and moved to this location in 1990…it’s even the oldest covered bridge in Alabama now:

One day this week, Leslie and I took Shug to the Aldridge Botanical Garden in Hoover. It was the first time we had ever been…and it is beautiful! There’s a gorgeous six acre lake:

They have a nice picnic area, and we fed Shug lunch there. I thought this faux bois picnic table was nice:

Pretty waterfall:

Shug loved it – and one of the geese from the lake came over and wanted to make friends with him.

Right now, there isn’t a lot blooming (other than some big camellias) – they have lots & lots of hydrangeas, though, and I can’t wait to see them later this summer. This is how they mark the variety of some of the plants – a marker on a rock:

They had some Frank Fleming sculptures, too. This rabbit is “Waiting For My Ride” – he’s right across from…

…this!