Victoria pancakes and other entertainment
By Sasha Paulsen
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — About this time of year, we start sorting out what holiday shows to watch, either in theaters or on cozy rainy nights in front of the television. Of all of the movie choices — “Love Actually,” “Elf,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” — my hands-down favorite is “Christmas in Connecticut,” a 1945 film about Elizabeth Lane, a New Yorker who writes an entirely fictitious column for a national magazine about her simple life as a mother, wife and chef extraordinaire living on a farm in Connecticut. Among other gems, it stars S.Z. Sakall as Felix Bassenak, a chef whose favorite adjective is “hunky-dunky.”
The woman, who probably couldn’t make a tuna sandwich (Chef Bassenak delivers her hunky-dunky meals and provides recipes), is suddenly called upon by her publisher to invite a war hero to her non-existent country home to meet her non-existent baby and husband and share in her holiday festivities, including breakfast pancakes and Christmas dinner. So carried away is he by this idea, the publisher decides to join the party too.
I always identified with this character, Elizabeth Lane, because, truth be told, despite nearly 24 years as a food and wine editor, I am a dreadful cook. My first foray into food writing, as I recall, was editing a column that included a recipe for salad dressing that called for 12 cups of olive oil, which I blithely approved, not realizing that punctuation was missing from 1/2 cups of olive oil.
My own Felix Bassenak was my colleague at the Napa Valley Register, the late, great Pierce Carson, who not only loved food but was a hunky-dunky home cook.
My children were kindly accepting of my abject failure as a cook.
“We know that the better your writing is going, the worse your cooking gets,” my daughter Ariel told me.
From my son, Sam, my most memorable observation was the time he said, “Mom, there is something wrong with these mashed potatoes. They don’t have lumps.”
This was all brought home recently when Ariel and I, recently returned from Europe, both tested positive for COVID-19 and therefore were house-bound and alone on her birthday.
“I will bake you a cake,” I told her.
“Really?” she asked doubtfully.
“Any kind you would like,” I said. “And I will follow a recipe.”
In that case, she said, how about a Victoria sponge, a fluffy, jam-filled British specialty. She is getting ready for her wedding next spring to Douglas, a Scotsman who lives in Wales.
I found a recipe in The New York Times food section and went to work, meticulously following the directions since she believes I have a tendency to improvise and this, she maintains, never works in baking. I even carefully cut out parchment paper circles for the baking pans. I put the pans in the oven and, exactly 2O minutes later, took out two pancakes.
“Did you forget the baking powder?” she asked.
“No! No. I did everything mise en place, just like Phil Tessier. And it was a brand-new can of baking powder, too.”
Then I rechecked my ingredients. This is when I realized that instead of baking powder, I had put in cornstarch, which does not help a cake to rise and become spongelike. Perhaps I had not read the label, but who on earth started putting cornstarch in cans that look just like baking powder?
“It’s not bad really,” Ariel insisted as we had it with Welsh tea. “Just a little dense. But the jam is good.”
“I am sorry I missed that one,” Sam said, calling from L.A. “So your new novel is going well, Mom?”
I said it had to be the COVID.
Since it is entirely possible that your holiday home cooking and baking may not be as entertaining as our household, I highly recommend “Christmas in Connecticut.”
And on the subject of entertainment, local seasonal shows are beginning this weekend with two special productions.
Napa High School is presenting “Elf the Musical,” in the school’s Little Theater. Duncan Cooper, Napa’s choral music instructor, directs the show with two different casts — the “twinkly jingly cast” and the “sparkle jolly cast” — performing the hilarious and heart-warming story of a human raised by elves at the North Pole, who lands in New York City and saves Christmas. It’s based on the film that starred Will Ferrell and James Caan.
“Elf the Musical” performances at Napa High are Nov. 15-19, with shows each night at 7 p.m. and two additional matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
If you have never seen the Napa High choral students perform, you are in for a super holiday treat.
For information visit napachoir.org. Advance tickets are available here.
The second enticing prospect is an unusual fall concert from Music in the Vineyards, the group that generally fills August with chamber concerts throughout the valley.
On Saturday, Nov. 18, they will be performing a one-hour program of four pieces by living composers woven together with historical counterparts.
For example, a song by Hildegard von Bingen, a remarkable medieval nun, musician and writer, will be juxtaposed with a work for strings and harpsichord by Michi Wiancko from 2021.
The organization’s co-artistic director, Daria Tedeschi Adams, created the program, which also includes Elizabethan-era songs by John Dowland, Italian madrigals by Gesualdo and a Bourrée by J.S. Bach paired with modern counterparts by Wiancko and Caroline Shaw.
Tickets are $40 ($10 for students and those under 18). The concert begins at 5 p.m. at the Napa Methodist Church at 625 Randolph St. in Napa.
To learn more and purchase tickets, please visit www.musicinthevineyards.org. For questions, call (707)
258-5559 or e-mail info@musicinthevineyards.org.
And although it’s not taking place until the first weekend in December, tickets are likely to sell out quickly for the Bel Canto holiday concert, “The World of Christmas,” set for Friday, Dec. 1, at the Methodist Church in Napa and Saturday, Dec. 2, at Mont La Salle on Redwood Road. Both venues have superb acoustics.
The gifted Ted von Pohle is the director of Bel Canto, which he organized by drawing together a group of equally talented local singers. I have sat in on rehearsals to get to know them, and even those are, as the name promises, beautiful music. Tickets are on sale on their website.
And so the season of arts — and baking — begins. I am only grateful that my son-in-law-to-be has sent me a plum pudding from Wales so all I will have to do with the British specialty is steam it.
And I don’t think Ariel will let me make her wedding cake.
Sasha Paulsen is a Napa Valley-based novelist and journalist.
And I don't spell so gud early in the morning
I once put pictin instead of gelatin in my Aunt's famous blasck bottom pie. Chocolate soup, anyone?