The New Casualness

"Can't you see that Betty Helen has no idea what goes on here?" he said. "She's either evil or lobotomized, Why did she just tell you that the Western Union messenger was your friend?"

"It's hard for a normal person to tell who's an artist and who isn't these days," Guido said. "It's the new casualness. Holly says it's making slobs of us all. Betty Helen has the right attitude. Now, for example, the other day, a guy selling office equipment came in dressed like a bank president. Then the guy from the bank came in dressed like a college professor, Then Cyril Serber came in. He's the poet and classicist but he works out with weights. He came up on his way from the gym and Betty Helen probably thought he was from the delicatessen. So you see, it's easy to be confused."

Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time, page 77. Copyright 1971

As you can see from the excerpt above, the New Casualness has been driving us all crazy since the 1970's. Once the iron curtain of rigid dress codes began to fall, there was no turning back. Yet we are all left adrift on a sea of too much choice.
In my own experience, I began high school in a system where boys wore shirts and ties and girls were forbidden to wear pants to school, and four years later we were wearing shorts and tshirts to class (with our swim suits on underneath so we could drive directly to Salt Creek Beach after class let out in June.)
My daughter says perhaps we need to implement new rules, a modern dress code 'containment' policy, so we will all know what Not to Wear in any situation. And certainly there is no shortage of advice out there.
(If you want to make a grown woman cry, just tell her she is invited to a daytime wedding and put semi-formal on the invite and then drop the news that it's outside. Or a beach wedding - what on earth would you wear to that?)
Do we need new rules? And if we do, what would those rules be?

Sour Cherry Cake

My original plan was to make a peach cobbler, but Mr. Hunting Creek brought home a basket of sour cherries. They were so pretty, like little rubies. They looked just like fairy tale cherries, in twin stems and almost glowing in their sour redness. We each ate one. No lie, they are sour. But sour in a nice way, and super juicy. I decide to adapt a recipe I noticed for cranberries.



First I had to pit the cherries, so Mr. Hunting Creek set up Pandora for The Red Hot Chili Peppers and friends and I sat down for the pitting with my trusty Italian cherry pitter. I pitted them over a bowl because they were so juicy. It is sticky work; your fingers and your hands will be sticky, but amazingly, not red. The juice was palest pink. See how pretty they are in the baking dish? Of course I used my favorite Bennington pie plate. Things somehow taste better in a pretty baking dish.
It only took about six songs to pit them all. Then I poured the juice in the bowl through a strainer and got the few tablespoons of juice into the baking dish from the pitting. I felt so frugal saving it.
The recipe I used is adapted from Laurie Colwin's Nantucket Cranberry Pie
from her wonderful book, More Home Cooking. Adapted of course, for Sour Cherries and my own preferences.



Mount Vernon Sour Cherry Cake (inspired by Laurie Colwin's Nantucket Cranberry Pie)

Pit about 2 cups of cherries. In the bottom of a 10 inch pie pan or springform pan, place the cherries, and 3/4 cup of sugar. (Mine were very sour, so I used 3/4 cup of sugar. Peaches would only need 1/2 cup, I think.)
In a bowl, mix 2 eggs, 3/4 cup melted butter (that's a stick and a half) 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir til smooth. Pour over cherries and bake for 40 minutes at 350. Eat with ice cream.

This may be the easiest summer fruit recipe you will ever see, and no one thought to convert it to a summer recipe until I happened to think, "hey, that would be good with cherries". This is another reason why reading cookbooks in bed is such a valuable bad habit.

In sewing news, I have been working on and off on that baby quilt, and when I have some visible progress I'll show you a picture.
Auntie Allyn, you won the Amy Butler Velma Bag drawing, so send your address via email and I'll mail it to you. My address is a post or two down.
Have a great weekend and bake a summer fruit cake. You'll be glad you did.