International Physical Theatre Laboratory
October 25-31, 2009
Retzhof Castle
Leitring bei Leibnitz, Austria
Intensive practical training, lectures, conference, discussions.
Accommodation and meals are organized for participants.
The working language is English.
Programme & Registration: http://www.iugte.com/projects/PhysicalTheatre.php
It seems a damn shame that for most people thoughts of sweet potatoes come around only during the winter holiday season. If you’re not guilty of seasonal sweet potato dysphoria, relax and read on. I won’t belabor the point. Yams, the bright yellow inside (almost orange) soft sweet potatoes are what I refer to here, not the northern white flesh kind. Southern sweet ‘taters, ya’ll. Puerto Ricans or the like.
*and let me state here, for the record, that it is absolutely ridiculous to have February be “sweet potato month”. Is that belaboring?
The best sweet potato recipe is the simplest.
MacEwan’s Smashed Sweet Taters
Bake around three pounds of sweet potatoes. Slip ‘em out of their skins (after they cool, der), mash and smash the taters with about a half stick of butter and 1/2 c of brown sugar. (you can even use your Kitchen Aid behemoth for this and create a totally smooth concoction). The best way to know if you added enough butter and brown sugar is to taste it — add more according to your own preference.
Butter a 13″x9″x2″ pan, fill/spread it with the smashed taters.
Topping
This varies according to the contents of my pantry. The basic recipe is to double the topping list for a standard Bisquick coffee cake:
2/3 cup Bisquick
4 tbls butter
2/3 c brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
and then to that I add about
1/2 c oatmeal
2 tbls butter
1/2 c chopped pecans
more cinnamon if need be
This needs to be a crumbly mix, with small lumps about the size of the tip of your little finger.
Crumble the topping over the sweet potato spread.
Bake at 350 degrees. How long? Welllllll… keep an eye on it. Probably about half an hour. You want the top to brown and get crunchy. In my gas oven, that takes 30 minutes.
* If your house is on the market and someone has an appointment to tour it, put this in the oven about 5 minutes before they are due to arrive. It smells so delicious, even better than baking bread, it will make people love your house. (Set your oven to auto-turn-off, if you’re lucky enough to have a stove like mine.)
Yam Facts:
There is a difference between sweet potatoes grown in northern states and those grown in Louisiana. Sweet potatoes produced in the northern states are mostly “firm” and tend to be drier, more mealy, and yellow in flesh. People in Louisiana enjoy the second type, “soft”, which is higher in natural sugar, is more moist, and has a bright orange flesh color. Most often it is the “soft” type which is referred to as a yam.
And – I learned to make a Bisquick coffee cake in the eighth grade at Kimmons Jr. High in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Of course, we didn’t use Bisquick, we made our own all-purpose mix from scratch. My friend Sarah and I were so good at making coffee cakes, our teacher would get us out of other classes to come to the home ec lab to bake for school events like teacher’s meetings and even school board meetings. Home economics back in the ’60s was truly the place to be. We even learned how to sew and made a-line skirts. Imagine that.
My grandson Ollie follows in his family’s photography footprints. With the exception of the first one – he took these photos a couple weeks ago, just after his fourth birthday. Quite an eye for such a little guy, eh? I marvel at his ability to hold the little Sony digital camera steady. And to keep his fingers off the lens.