Professor Butter Beard and Timothy O’Sullivan’s “Cañon de Chelle”
“Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power...it is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.”
― Justus von Liebig, 19th century German scientist
“I need chocolate,” said Jodi. She and I had been working two weeks of fourteen-hour days hiring this month’s batch of new surgeons and physician extenders. Mentally exhausted, she requested the “beneficent restorer of exhausted power.” I knew just what to do.
Like Vianne in “Chocolat,” I discern your favorites – the remedies to calm your soul. For Allison, it is a warm cheesecake brownie. My bestie Michael requires squares of rich chewy chocolate fudge. A simple chocolate chip cookie will satisfy Cait. Chef Neil turns into a human bearhug after a few ice cream sandwiches created with Sambuca-laced dark chocolate cookies and vanilla bean gelato. And for my lovely Jennifer, it was the darkest chocolate ganache truffles rolled in cocoa and cinnamon.
At times, we all require a restorative prescription. For the 19th century American photographer Timothy O’Sullivan, his soul’s regeneration was inspired by the majestic canyons of the unchartered West.
O'Sullivan's history and personal life remains unclear as there is little factual information to work from. To date, his historians believe he was either born in Ireland and came to New York City two years later with his parents or his parents traveled to New York before he was born. What we do know is that as a teenager, he was employed as an apprentice at Mathew Brady’s daguerreotype studio in New York City.
During the American Civil War, he photographed on many fronts as part of the team sent out by Brady who then published O’Sullivan’s photographs as part of his “Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War” in 1866. In works such as “A Harvest of Death,” which shows the Confederate dead at Gettysburg, O’Sullivan moved beyond traditional war images, which usually portrayed armies at rest, to capture instead the grim and gruesome realistic horrors of armed warfare. And it broke his soul.
In 1867, in an attempt to find some healing breathing space, O’Sullivan accepted the offer as the official photographer on the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel under Clarence King. The expedition began at Virginia City, Nevada, where he photographed the mines, and worked eastward. In so doing, he became one of the pioneers in the field of “geophotography.” In contrast to the Asian and Eastern landscape norms, the subject matter he focused on was a new concept. It involved taking pictures of nature as an untamed, pre-industrialized land without the use of familiar landscape painting conventions. O'Sullivan discovered the key to combining science and art, making exact records of extraordinary beauty.
During the early 1870’s, O’Sullivan was associated with a series of surveys in the southwestern United States, during which he created powerful, carefully composed images of sweeping canyons abandoned by the Navaho tribes earlier in the century. Located in northeastern Arizona, the Cañon de Chelle, cut by streams with headwaters in the Chuska Mountains, is within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation and lies in the Four Corners region. Reflecting one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes of North America, it preserves ruins of the indigenous tribes that lived in the area, from the ancestral Puebloans to the Navajo.
O’Sullivan’s photograph of the straited canyon and its hidden ruins takes my breath away every time I introduce it to my students. I imagine him, like Ansel Adams, standing with every one of his senses alive and receptive, waiting for that “perfect moment” when the light captures the entire soul of the ancient landscape. His understanding of the black-and-white format is groundbreaking in its depth and complexity. A perfect remedy. A perfect prescription.
This magnificent work greatly influenced my “chocolate prescription” for Jodi (and for me!). I imitated the striations in the stone by rolling layers of dark chocolate, English toffee and toasted walnuts into deliciously buttered brioche and then slashing them open to reveal the sumptuous streaks while baking. No need to share. Each loaf can be consumed as individualized “soul medicine,” in your own time, in your own space. Brew a pot of tea, open a treasured novel, share the sofa with your pup, then take a bite and let the healing begin.
Chocolate-Filled Individual Brioche
Makes sixteen mini loaves
3 ¾ cups bread flour
¼ cup almond flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill)
1 tsp fine sea salt
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
3 tsp instant dried yeast
5 large eggs, room temperature
½ cup warm whole milk
½ cup sourdough starter (optional)
18 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
Filling:
1 cup mini chocolate chips
1 cup toasted and finely chopped walnuts (or other nuts of choice)
1 cup English toffee brittle bits (now available in supermarkets)
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1) Place the two flours, salt, sugar, nutmeg and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer and mix with the whisk attachment to fully combine.
2) In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, whole milk and starter. (If you don’t use any starter, increase your milk to 2/3 cup)
3) Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture in the standing mixer. Switch to the dough hook attachment and mix on a slow speed for 2 minutes and then increase to a medium speed for 10 minutes to form a soft, elastic dough.
4) Turn the mixture back to low and add the butter in 1 Tbsp pieces. Once all the butter has been added, increase the speed to medium and mix until the dough come together into a shiny, smooth dough.
5) Turn the dough into a butter-greased glass bowl and cover the top of the bowl with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to double in size. This should take about one hour.
6) While the dough is rising, in a medium bowl, combine all the filling ingredients and mix with your fingers until thoroughly combined.
7) Butter two mini-loaf pans and have them at the ready.
8) When the dough has fully risen, turn it out onto your counter and divide in half. Roll the first half into a 16” by 16” square. Spread half the filling over the dough leaving a 1” border of dough on all sides. Roll up the dough tightly like a jelly roll. Divide the roll into eight pieces and place them in the prepared pans. Do the same for the second half of the dough.
9) Loosely cover the loaves with plastic wrap and allow to proof while you pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.
10) When ready to bake, slash the first pan of loaves with scissors and then place the first pan on the center rack of the pre-heated oven. Bake for 10 minutes, rotate the pan, and then bake for another 6-7 minutes until just golden brown. Remove the first pan and then bake the second.
11) Allow the loaves to cool in the pan for ten minutes and then cool completely on a wire rack.
