plum – Better with Lemon

I spent yesterday preparing for a friend who’s here visiting us for 10 days and another friend who’s visiting us this weekend and the next. When I was little, we lived in a small two-bedroom house (which became a three-bedroom when my parents split one bedroom into two tiny ones, for me and my sister). When people would come visit and stay overnight, they usually took my and my sister’s beds. We were relegated to the living room where we slept on cots (or “camp beds” as we called them). They were uncomfortable and squeaked when you moved, but I didn’t care. I loved having visitors in our house.

They brought new life to our family, with their funny stories and different ways. And usually they brought gifts too, for me and my sister. My mom always stressed about having guests stay with us and now as an adult I can understand why. Our house was really small, and where we lived, there was no public transportation. We had one car only and my mother didn’t learn to drive until I was a teenager. But she always made sure our visitors (aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins) felt welcome and comfortable. She cooked and baked and often made the “special” desserts that she made only on important occasions.

I’m not as stressed as my mom was when friends or family visit Steve and me. We are lucky to have extra space and people who visit us can usually take care of themselves in New York city. But just like my mother, I make sure nobody leaves our home hungry. I bake for a couple of days to make sure we have many breakfast options. I make at least two different ice creams for a quick dessert and I plan out at least one big, home cooked dinner at our place.

So in anticipation of our friends coming this weekend I made this plum torte. It comes together in 10 minutes and it’s the perfect summer dessert. The plums get covered with the rising batter and they bake slowly, releasing their juices into the buttery cake. I think our friends will be happy at dinner tonight.Plum Torte – Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (note: if you don’t like cinnamon, substitute with 1/2 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest)
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder (the aluminum-free kind, if you can find it)
Large pinch of salt
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (115 grams or 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
6-7 black plums or 12 small Italian purple plums, halved and pitted (or use pluots, nectarines, or peaches)
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Heat over to 350°F. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or 1/2 tablespoon grated lemon zest). Set aside. Sift or whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In a larger bowl, cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until fluffy and light in color, about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time and scraping down the bowl, then the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Batter will be thick, like frosting.

Spoon batter into an ungreased 9-inch springform pan (you can put parchment paper in bottom for easy removal) and smooth the top. Place the plums, skin side up, all over the batter, covering it. No need to press them into the batter. It will rise and mostly cover them. Sprinkle the top with lemon juice, then with the cinnamon sugar (or lemon zest sugar).

Bake until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into a center part of the cake comes out free of batter, about 50 to 60 minutes. Cool on rack.

It was a spring evening in 1997. There I was, with my boyfriend at the time and four of our friends, all gay men, sitting around a TV in a suburban living room, somewhere in northern New Jersey, waiting for the world to change. We knew this was coming. Everyone knew. But it didn’t make it any less monumental for us.

Our conversation stopped as soon as the show started. We watched with the cautious anticipation of those whose hopes had been dashed too many times before. But there she was on the screen, leaning over a podium microphone and pronouncing those words “I’m gay,” accidentally broadcasting them over an entire airport. We laughed nervously, not quite ready to feel relief. She had done it. Ellen had come out on TV. The first time a main character on a hit TV show came out as gay (along with the actress who portrayed it).

It’s been eighteen years since that night. We knew then that Ellen’s coming out was just another brick in the house we were all building. A seemingly small one (it was, after all just one character in one show that ended up being cancelled after one more season). But it turned out to be much bigger than we had thought. It was the beginning of us being seen and heard, in TV shows and books, in songs and movies, and eventually, in towns and neighborhoods where we had been all but invisible. It was the start of a movement that said: here we are, we are people, who live and love and die like you, who stress over who will take the kids to soccer practice or agonize over what to wear on that first date, who want to reach out and wipe with our thumb the drop of plum ice cream that’s stubbornly stuck to our lover’s lower lip but we are afraid to do so in public. We are like you.

Eighteen years ago, six gay mean watching TV in New Jersey could not have predicted (and they did not) that one day relatively soon, they would be witnesses to the Supreme Court (or at least most of it) saying yes, your love matters as much as anyone else’s. That they, some of them by now married with kids, would finally see the roof finished over that house they and those that had come before them had been building for decades. There are still things left undone, without a doubt, and there are others who still vow to tear that house down, but for now, that roof has finally made that house a home.

Plum Ice Cream – From The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments

Ingredients:

1 lb (450 g) plums
1/3 cup (80 ml) water
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (180g) sugar
1 cup (250 ml) heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon kirsch

Directions:

Slice the plums in half and remove the pits. Cut the plums into eighths and put them in a medium saucepan with the water. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sugar until dissolved. Let cool to room temperature.

In a blender, purée cooled plums with cream and kirsch until smooth.

Chill mixture in refrigerator until very cold and freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.