M.F.K. Fisher: Ambrosia

M.F.K. Fisher's The Art of Eating is a joy to read. It's a compilation of her most famous gastronomical works however, it's not about food or eating. It's about the role food plays in comfort, people coming together and discovering life, different cultures, and their inner desires.

Her An Alphabet for Gourmets inspired this blog so it's fitting that I do the ABCs of recipes in The Art of Eating. Starting with A for Ambrosia. My memories of ambrosia are of canned fruit cocktail topped with marshmallows. To be honest, I'm not sure where that memory comes from--is it a lunchroom memory or a church memory? Something my mother served? Who knows. I just know that one day, when I was in my 20s, as I ate rocky road ice cream I had a revelation: I hated marshmallows. I don't know how this distaste developed or when. It also pertains only to cold marshmallows as I will top hot chocolate with them and finish off the marshmallow layer of sweet potato casserole (which is rare in my family--for some reason we don't eat sweet potatoes at holiday meals and this saddens me since I love them).

So Fisher's recipe for ambrosia appealed to me because it did not contain marshmallows.

Her recipe is basically layered oranges, coconut, and sugar with sherry* poured on top, chilled. Easy enough. I took my 4 month old to the liquor store to get sherry in the dessert wine aisle. Next to the sherry bottles was a bottle of dessert wine that I already had in my tiny wine collection and I decided to use that bottle instead of purchasing a bottle of sherry that would be used once and never again. When I got home, I realized I had already drunk that bottle of dessert wine (when? when did I do that?) and I did not want to sacrifice my bottle of Sauternes.

Google lead me to some ambrosia recipes which used rum. I don't have rum either. What I do have is a bottle of Southern Comfort from when I made a Southern Comfort apple pie 5 years ago. So I used that. Not the same, I know, but I like to think it fits with the southern heritage of the dish. According to Fisher, "In this country Ambrosia is a dessert as traditionally and irrefutably Southern as pecan pie." Interestingly, Serious Eats just ran a recipe of Ambrosia from The Lee Bro. Simple, Fresh, Southern, which is alcohol-free. Fisher's recipe seems to be a California version of Ambrosia.


The verdict: Nice. More of a topping. If I were to do it again, I would use sherry and more sugar, which I used a lighter hand with than the recipe called for, and bigger, better oranges. So my ambrosia was not exactly the food of the gods. Worth making again as a topping. And that's how we're planning on eating it tonight: over ice cream (not rocky road).


* When I spent a summer in France, the French people I met would often question my name (who names their child "Dear"?). I ended up telling them that I was named after the aperitif. I've only had my namesake drink a few times, last time over gelato.

Crafts: Windows

W is for Windows. In 2001 or 2002 I received the Ballard Designs catalog which featured a window with four panes and a botanical drawing of a rose in each frame. I was inspired and wanted to do something similar with my travel photos. My mother and I found windows at an antique store in Lumberton, Texas, and I took them back to Austin in my little Ford Focus hatchback.

My windows change with me. When I return from a wonderful, eyeopening vacation, I want to remember it. So I end up taking a photo from that adventure and putting it in the window, removing an old photo.

Left to right, top row: Giverny, France; Aix-en-Provence, France; Tallin, Estonia; Tivoli, Denmark; Barcelona, Spain; Singapore.


Moscow, Russia; Quebec, Canada; Tulum, Mexico; Berlin, Germany; Cliffs of Moher, Ireland; and Peterhof Palace, Russia.

Although it is premature and incomplete, I am done with crafts since my good ones are Christmas related and I do not want to get down a couple of huge boxes from the top of my closet right now. Maybe in December.

Crafts: Quilts

Quilts and cookbooks are similar to each other in that they tell stories about people, periods of time, and highlight creativity. I love to hear the stories behind quilts, what patterns were popular at certain times, and things like whose old shirt was cut up to make squares to keep a baby warm.

I've never made a quilt--maybe someday--but I come from a family of quiltmakers. My mother made/finished a quilt for my son, and she's the last person I would expect to be a quilter due to her job and travel schedule. Above is a quilt my great grandmother made, it's one of her better ones--she did have some odd color combinations, which is part of the charm in her quilts.

Crafts: Pocket Organizer

Skipping letter O. Moving on to P: Pocket Organizer. Another thing I made while pregnant, unemployed, and nesting using my grandmother's fabric. My mother and I think it is old flour sack material. This was complicated because of the stains and rips in the fabric. There are a few things I would do differently now, such as sewing on the blue bias tape first, then putting the whole thing together. All in all, it was fun and has not fallen apart yet.


Above, completed, not holding anything.




A few months after my son was born. The elephant is a stuffed elephant head from Thailand--It doesn't really match but I needed a new place for it.

The pattern is from Sew Vintage.

Crafts: Name

I am skipping M right now because we've ordered a new camera, but it isn't here yet.

Expectant mothers like to nest and have their child's room ready. They peruse magazines and online stores for nursery ideas. One thing most stores sell are letters for the baby's name as a room decoration.

We didn't have a name for my son until 23.5 hours after he was born, so I didn't have a name on his wall when he came home. However, one of the first places I insisted on going after getting home was Michael's, so I could get some wall letters and blue spray paint from Lowe's. Sure, I could have purchased letters from Pottery Barn Kids, but these were cheaper and in my neighborhood.


I got the dark blue paint to match the art from my Mother-In-Law--the wall decor she got at her shower before my husband was born. I used putty to put them on the wall. Later, when my son was about two months, I was at Michael's again and picked up some $0.25 each sports balls and added them to the letters.