Professor Butter Beard’s “Power House Mechanic”
“The soul conceives, the mind creates, the body experiences. The circle is complete.” – Neale Donald Walsch, American author
Circles. They seem to be everywhere I turn lately. Literally! From re-growing my Santa curls to acknowledging my cravings for the return of autumnal flavors, circles reinforce my foundation and remind me to not grab hold, but to let the cycle confidently move forward on its natural path. If only that lesson had not taken decades to learn!
As I get ready to re-enter the autumn academic season, my meditations remind me that I am the product of four generations of educators. From college professors to high school history teachers (yes, I did have my father as my high school history teacher and my mother as a substitute teacher in elementary school!), I have been surrounded since birth with amazing instructors and mentors and it has been both a blessing and a curse. I fled from the academic world early and dove headfirst into the universe of butter and sugar. When I hit the burnout stage twenty years later and temporarily lost my passion for baking, I returned to graduate school in London and emerged with a reinvigorated enthusiasm which led me right back into academic life.
This semester I will be teaching the history and appreciation of photography. It is one of my favorite syllabi and I love introducing students to my star photographers – Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugene Atget and Bernice Abbot, Dorothea Lange and, especially, Lewis Hine.
Lewis Wickes Hine was born in 1874 and grew up in a family that owned a simple restaurant in the small town of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. After losing his father in a tragic accident at an early age, he provided for himself and his family first as a factory worker in a furniture production company and then as a doorman, salesman, and bookkeeper. He set aside as much money as possible and eventually studied sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia University and New York University, all leading to his employment as a teacher in New York City at the Ethical Culture School, where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium. Hine led his sociology classes to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day. From then on, Hine viewed his camera as a weapon for revealing social injustice and effecting change through the power of images.
In 1908, Hine left his teaching position to become the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). At the time, the immorality of child labor was meant to be hidden from the public and Hine's work for the NCLC was often dangerous. He was frequently threatened with violence or even death by factory police and foremen as photography posed a serious threat to the industry. To gain entry to the mills, mines and factories, he was forced to assume many guises including a fire inspector, postcard vendor, bible salesman, or even an industrial photographer making a record of factory machinery. Hine's photographs supported the NCLC's lobbying to end child labor, and in 1912 the Children's Bureau was created. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ultimately brought child labor in the United States to an end.
Hine’s next shift came in 1919, when he moved from a gritty documentary style to what he called “interpretive photography” introducing an approach intended to raise the stature of industrial workers, who he thought were increasingly becoming diminished by the massive machinery they operated. In his both haunting and somewhat erotic “Power House Mechanic,” the model’s body blends into the structure of the machine with the arch of his back mirroring the curve of the metal plate as he strains to secure it in place. The man and the machine have morphed into one being. Hine later wrote, “In the last analysis, good photography is a question of art. I wanted to show the thing that had to be corrected: I wanted to show the things that had to be appreciated.”
The flawless circles and curves within Hine’s photograph inspired this week’s bake. The perfect sphere and exquisite taste of this season’s dark plums are showcased in this round high tart as they swim in a custard of hazelnut frangipane. But before I flow naturally into full autumnal mode, I will indulge in one more glorious summer treat by accompanying my slice with a huge scoop of sweet corn gelato from Nicholas Creamery in Atlantic Highlands. You have my permission to slow the cycle, just for a delicious moment.
Dark Plum and Hazelnut Tart
One deep 10” tart – use a tart pan with a removable bottom
Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp hazelnut flour (I recommend Bob’s Red Mill version)
½ tsp kosher salt
8 Tbsp (one stick) cold unsalted butter
1 egg yolk and 2 Tbsp ice water
Filling:
6-8 plums, halved, pits removed and each sliced into six pieces
2/3 cup hazelnuts, toasted and skins removed, finely chopped
6 Tbsp hazelnut flour
4 Tbsp all-purpose flour
½ tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
8 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup white sugar
Zest of one lime
2 large eggs, room temperature and slightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla paste
1) For the crust (shell): Whisk together the flours and salt. With a box grater, grate the one stick of butter over the dry mix. With your fingers, mix the dry and butter together until no large clumps of butter remain. In a small bowl, whisk together the yolk and water and add to the dry mix. With your fingers, gather the dough together into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for thirty minutes.
2) Roll the chilled pastry to 1/8” thickness and gently ease into your tart pan (with a removable bottom) leaving a 1/2” overhang. Prick the bottom of the crust shell with a fork. Chill the shell again for another 15 minutes while your oven heats to 350 degrees.
3) Bake the shell for 25-30 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and trim the top to be even with the top of the tart pan.
4) While the shell bakes, prep your plums by halving them, removing their pits and then slicing each plum into six portions.
5) Toast your hazelnuts, rub them together to remove the skins and then pulse a few times in a food processor to grind until fine.
6) In a small bowl, whisk together the flours, salt and cinnamon. Mix in the ground hazelnuts
7) In a standing mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and zest of the one lime. Turn the mixer to low and add the beaten eggs and vanilla. Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the dry mix until smooth. Spread the frangipane evenly in the baked shell. Place the plum slices in a circular pattern over the frangipane, pressing down very slightly.
8) Bake the tart for roughly 35 minutes until the frangipane is set and golden.
9) Cool the tart at least one hour on a wire rack before easing the tart out of the pan.
Lewis Wickes Hine and his “Adolescent Girl, a Spinner, in a Carolina Cotton Mill,” 1908, Gelatin silver photograph.
