Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins (38 page)

Juli remembered one particular Mouton Hunt conversation with Molly. “The wine-infused discussion had drifted into talk in which someone said Bush was likable, somewhat charming and much more approachable than the former governor, Ann Richards, whom Ivins admired and even considered a personal friend,” Juli said. “Although Molly had started the discussion, the praise of Bush eventually became more effusive than she could stand and she brought it to a close by simply saying, ‘He may be charming, but, ladies, it's the wrong program.'”

It was a view of Bush that didn't change during his White House years. Ken Bunting recalled Molly's unswerving commitment to tracking Bush's political career. “As his troubles grew and his popularity plummeted,” Ken observed, “Ivins liked to use the president as an object lesson she would forcefully share with readers, TV viewers, and social companions. The gist was, ‘You oughta listen when I tell you something about a Texas politician.'”

When the Mouton gathering ended, Juli and Marie stayed on to hang out with Molly, where they cooked together. Marie's memories of the experience remain vivid. “I couldn't have been more excited when [participation in the retreat] led to an invitation to have dinner the next night at the house of one of my all-time heroes,” she said. “Shortly after we arrived, Molly went out and
returned with bags and bags of groceries. She announced that we were making carrot soup and off to the kitchen we went. Much chopping, peeling, mincing, grating, and slicing were required.

“Molly pointed to a wall of cupboards and said that she had commissioned them to hold her collection of kitchen tools. For what seemed like hours, we chopped, skinned, mashed, and sliced. We told stories and laughed and laughed. So whenever Molly's name comes up in conversation, I always say, ‘I'll tell you something about Molly Ivins you don't know: she was a great cook.'”

36

I HAD NEVER HEARD OF SHIRLEY CORRIHER
until I became a food writer at the
Dallas Morning News
. So when she came to town and I was assigned to cover her cooking class at Sur la Table, I dutifully trundled along. I had been given a major heads-up about her “Touch of Grace” biscuits. Molly had never heard of Corriher either until I told her the surefire dinner menu of extraordinary proportions that I experienced on that assignment.

Before there was Alton Brown on TV talking food science, there was jovial Shirley Corriher making sense of the chemical and physical properties that determine why, how, and whether a particular preparation method works.

In my job covering the food beat, I was often forced to endure meeting world-class chefs and sampling their wares. It was a rotten job, but somebody had to do it. Corriher's Touch of Grace biscuits are called that for a reason.

This particular assignment demanded that I sit through the preparation and sampling of a three-course meal: green salad tossed with ramen noodles, walnuts, cauliflower, three kinds of lettuce, and shallot dressing; slow-roasted pork prepared with Worcestershire sauce, apple juice, and brown sugar; steamed broccoli with chile oil; biscuits with Chambord butter; and peach cobbler for dessert.

By the time the biscuits were served, I was perched precariously on the brink of a food orgasm. I'd like to think I didn't put it exactly that way when I called to tell Molly about the meal, but I didn't have to get graphic. As soon as I got to the part about the pork roast, she stopped me.

“Fax it,” she said.

“The pork butt recipe?”

“All of it.”

A day later I got a call.

“Sweetsie? Ivins.” I could hear the sound of calendar pages rustling. “We're doing that dinner you sent me.”

“Which one?”

“The one with the pork butt, broccoli, biscuits, and cobbler. I've parceled out each course, but we need someone to do the biscuits. Who haven't we seen lately?”

“We've never seen Angela Shelf Medearis.”

“Who?”

“Angela Shelf Medearis. The Kitchen Diva. She's written a couple of cookbooks, and I interviewed her for the
News
and said the next time I was in Austin I'd give her a call.”

“Okay.”

A week or two after that conversation, six of us assembled. Shelia Cheaney got the simplest task because, well, cooking is not her strong suit. Anyway, preparing cherry-Chambord butter required only squishing together some butter, cream cheese, liqueur, sugar, and preserves. Since the grated orange zest was optional, this was a non-cook's slam dunk.

Molly made the salad. I had assumed responsibility for getting the slow-roasted pork show going that morning, because it needed eight hours to cook. Del Garcia steamed the broccoli and made the chile oil; Courtney Anderson, who still loves to bake, took on cobbler. Angela was on biscuit duty because they had to be done at the last minute. We even went so far as to buy Shirley's preference, White Lily Flour, a low-protein self-rising flour. Everything had to be done the way Shirley had done it, or, in my little pea brain, the meal was doomed.

There was no doomsday scenario. Everything was perfect, especially the biscuits. The dinner was the usual rowdy, ribald, hooting success. I think Angela was a little overwhelmed. I don't think it was the image of Molly she had envisioned. But her interpretation of the biscuits was spot-on. They are the most perfect, the lightest, the most heavenly biscuits ever, even better than the ones at Lucile's, a popular Colorado restaurant in Boulder and Denver—and Lucile's biscuits are killer.

Shirley Corriher alternately described the dough as “grown-up mud pies” and “Grandmother's wet mess”—primarily because unlike the dough usually associated with biscuits, it is sticky-gooey. Apparently wet dough makes more steam in a hot oven and that accounts for the lightness.

The other secret—other than cream, buttermilk, and shortening—is the methodology. The cottage cheese–like dough gets shaped with an ice cream scoop, dusted with flour, and packed into a baking pan. The flavored butter is a nice touch, but the first two or three biscuits don't need anything. You might want butter on the next two or three. When you regain consciousness you can finish the meal if you've got room for cobbler. Guests eyeing the remaining biscuits were allowed to take two home. We saved two biscuits for Hope, Molly's indefatigable housekeeper, who almost croaked when she saw the flour-dusted kitchen that awaited her the following morning.