Professor Butter Beard and Francesca Alexander’s “Cinderella”
“In my own little corner in my own little chair
I can be whatever I want to be.
On the wings of my fancy I can fly anywhere
and the world will open its arms to me.”
- Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella”
For me, Leslie Ann Warren will forever be Cinderella. As a young gay elfling, I reinvented myself over and over again, inspired by her magic wand transformation from a soot-covered waif into a breathtakingly beautiful princess being swept away into her next life, harmonizing alongside her fairy godmother within an enchanted flying pumpkin driven by magical mouse-horses.
“I can be whatever I want to be.”
That hopeful treasure chest of options has followed me through this journey as I have reinvented myself multiple times: from a trumpet-playing journalist to a bottle-spinning bartender; from an architecture student to a baker’s apprentice; from a NYC Pastry Chef to a University Art History Professor. Landing finally as “yours truly” – Professor Butter Beard – combining all the past “Me’s” into one ferociously fabulous being (insert snickering Nellie giggles).
This week, I would like, gentle reader, to introduce you to another inspiring artistic “reinvention.”
Esther Frances Alexander was born in 1837, and spent her early life in Boston, where her father, Francis Alexander, was a successful portrait painter. In 1831, her father had fulfilled a long-cherished wish to visit Italy and while in Florence was commissioned to paint a portrait of Lucia, the daughter of Samuel Swett, a well-to-do merchant. Artist and sitter fell in love. Francis’s good prospects made him eligible for a marriage that brought him money and social status. He returned to Boston and resumed his portrait practice. The couple were engaged in 1834, married in 1836, and their only child, known as “Fanny” in her youth, was born a year later.
According to Fanny’s biographer, Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, the young lady’s “precocious artistic aptitude was fostered by instruction from her father.” She had no other formal training and later resisted professional teaching. Meanwhile, Francis continued to hanker for Italy and made plans to return. In 1853, when Fanny was 16, the family left Boston, thereafter, returning to the city only briefly as visitors.
The Alexanders fancied themselves as collectors of Italian Old Master paintings and, in a time of political turmoil, opportunities for discoveries were unprecedented, throwing many bargains in their way. Unfortunately, Francis died in 1880. Fanny’s devotion to her art proved no distraction from a close relationship with her mother, one that lasted until Lucia’s death, aged 102, in 1916. Musacchio writes that Fanny, “intensely pious, used earnings from her art to fund her many charitable endeavors, and her saintly character was linked in the minds of her friends to a romantic view of Italy itself.”
Soon after her father’s death, “Fanny” completely reinvented herself as the Italian “Francesca,” and her art and writing, from that moment on, concentrated solely on Italians and Italian life. She created loving portraits of her friends among the “contadini” (country people), going about their daily tasks, mark her affinity with prevailing taste for pictures of Italian peasant and working life. Her highly wrought nature studies that illustrate the local songs and stories were much admired in both Italian and international circles and noticed in the press. By 1882, the English art-critic and writer John Ruskin became her patron, buying one of her translated and illustrated manuscripts, still uncompleted, of Tuscan songs and carrying off another, “The Story of Ida.”
Ruskin went on to edit and publish Francesca’s “The Story of Ida” (1883), “Christ’s Folk in the Appenines” (1887) and “Roadside Songs of Tuscany” (1888). His admiration for Francesca’s drawings inspired a significant change in his views on women as artists. Within his lecture given in Oxford in 1883, he sung her praises: “For a long time I used to say, in all my elementary books, that, except in a graceful and minor way, women could not paint or draw. I am beginning lately, to bow myself to the much more delightful conviction that no one else can.”
“Cinderella Fanny” made it to the ball. A scrumptiously inspiring reinvention. This artistic means of transformation motivated me this week to re-examine my traditional Chocolate Chip Cookies, and upgrade them, with an elegant spin of my Fairy-Godfather wand, to include a few extra dance steps. I replaced half the all-purpose flour with toasted rye flour. The toasting of both the rye and the pecans adds a subtle smokey layer of personality to the original “sweet on sweet” version. For a spectacular final flourish, sprinkle the baked cookies with a dash of Tinkerbell magic flying dust (i.e. Kosher salt).
You may magically be transformed into “a young Egyptian princess or a milkmaid. Or the greatest prima donna in Milan. Or an heiress who has always had her silk made by her own flock of silkworms in Japan.” With just one nibble, “you can be whatever you want to be!”
Toasted Rye and Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies
4 dozen cookies
1 cup rye flour
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into ½” pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
1 Tbsp dark molasses
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 ½ cups dark chocolate chips
1 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
Kosher salt to finish the cookies, post-bake
1) In a medium cast-iron skillet, toast the pecans over medium heat until they are just aromatic and starting to brown. Pour the pecans onto a plate to cool and then coarsely chop. In the same skillet, toast the rye flour, stirring often, until fragrant and darkened by several shades. While the rye toasts, place the cut butter into a glass bowl. When the rye is toasted, pour the toasted flour over the butter and whisk until the butter has melted. Set aside to cool, whisking occasionally. In another medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
2) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line three cookie sheets with parchment paper.
3) In a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the eggs, sugar, molasses and vanilla paste. Gradually mix in the cooled rye/butter mix. Add the flour mixture and stir till combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the chocolate chips and pecans. Set the dough sit for 15-20 minutes while the oven comes to temperature.
4) Drop twelve 1-tablespoon mounds of dough onto each baking sheet (your will reuse the first sheet to bake the final dozen). Bake one sheet at a time, on the center rack of the oven, for 8 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake for 3 more minutes until the cookies are baked through and just starting to brown on the edges. Remove the sheet from the oven to a wire rack and lightly sprinkle a dash of Kosher salt on the top of each cookie. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 10 minutes, and then remove them to the wire rack to cool to room temperature before devouring them.
