COOKBOOK CONTEST WINNER: CREAM-TOPPED CARAMEL APPLE CROSTADA

(not a Frenchified “gallette” for God’s or any other son-of-a-bitch’s sake)

Thanks to Gary Cahill for going above and beyond in securing and sharing the following recipe in honor of our Mystery Writers of America Cookbook giveaway contest.

 

RECIPE AND ITS PROVENANCE provided by: Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (retired, with exceeding prejudice, out of) Central City, Central County, Texas, U.S.A.

Currently residing: Federal Black Site, USP ADX West Texas Supermax Facility

Convictions: Murder (multiple), attempted murder (exponential), assault with intent, assault with intent on a police officer, felony battery, assault on corrections officer, grand theft, arson, conduct unbecoming of a police officer, etc.

Sentence term history: Life, possible parole; adjusted to death; re-adjusted to Life without parole.

Conditions: 7’x12’ cell, 23-hour daily lockdown, 1-hour daily tour of attached exercise cage, three daily meals in lockdown.

GC: Loose lips flapping on a real live, Rio Grande cowhand (who’s also a real live U.S. Marshal, in New York to haul a scared-shitless protected witness back to El Paso for some unfinished Mexicali cartel courtroom drama) led me to a search for a living legend. Nothing good happens in a bar after 2:00 a.m.? I beg to differ. The true crime stories we told, like nothing you ever heard, buster—back and forth, one-upping each other, oh yeah?-ing each other. Another fresh round of Guinness and Jameson (every other shot went into a now-deceased, low-light indoor potted palm, which I’ve since replaced) would pull Officer Yellow Rose down deeper, into darker places, until “Can you top this?” dropped me off at the last ring of hell, occupied by Lou Ford. The fiery pit splayed open unto me. Lou beckoned. And I followed.

Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me isn’t a novel; it’s a biography, and a confession, fed to Big Jim by li’l old Lou, back in 1952, when the deputy was 29 years old and as full of his “sickness” as he’d ever be. It’s all there—all, that is, save the real ending, the cuffs and the perp walk, away to the screaming sirens and headlines and gut-wrenching trials. The final candle-set suicidal conflagration, the cops lying in wait, even the deserved vengeance of an angered universe, were not enough to take him out. Eons of jail time only muted the violent rage that erupted the two times he shucked and jived a parole board into letting him out, until the Feds supermaxed him when he was pushing 80. Which must be an all-time record.

I pulled in every favor from every in-the-know badge, shield, doctor, political fixer, masseur, masseuse, doper, bookie and shark in the local cop/criminal class, and bingo! Some shaken-and-stirred elixir of ’em all convinced a certain well-known and popular –redacted– to get me a middle-of-nowhere, fifty-sniper-escorted, if-one-word-leaks-everyone-you-know-dies, honest-to-God sit-down with Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford—and a recorder for accuracy. I would transcribe, the Feds and those unknown deities above them would serve as my “editors” and whack at my work with sickles and machetes and threats and leave me with… what? With this. With enough. With a colorfully tendered recipe, as requested.

Lou’s 92 now.

The Killer Inside Me opens with him eating pie and coffee at midnight.

Here we were, dead of night.

Both of us hungry as hell, Lou hungry in a few ways beyond… well …

That boy still loves to eat. In his dreams.

And bake—if they’d ever let him near kitchen tools and fire again.

LF:  (Much of Lou’s commentary has been redacted, for the security of confidential informants, protection of undercover law enforcement, and matters of taste. Now, with little need and no desire to disguise his madness, his “sickness” [as he calls it] shades the spirit and meaning of his words in ways the authorities deem unacceptable for even limited public consumption.)

After they’d let me out the second time, I was cruising as always for marks to verbally abuse, my usual way, and maybe the other way. I was a little more forward than I used to be when I had to protect my job and standing as deputy sheriff. After all that time in stir and my advancing age, it pains me to admit, I no longer considered “biding my time” if I got that old feeling and –redacted–

So this European pair, touring the great American Southwest, some boneheaded Eye-talian and a shitbird Frenchie walk into a bar… I know, the beginning of a thousand jokes, but this one keeps me laughing ’til this day. I swear, they never –redacted–

(–really redacted–)

… and if Frenchie hadn’t gotten all weird about this pie being called a “gallette,” for Christ’s sake, well, it might have gone a little easier for him. As it was, I went with the Eye-talian fella’s “crostada” label, which was a little more solid in the shoes than “gallette,” if you know what I mean, and I thanked him by going a might bit lighter on his hide when –redacted–

But, you know, nobody sees an old man comin’.

Anyway, I only got to make this thing once before the law caught up to me for the last time, but it was sooo tasty I committed it to memory, and the thought of its aroma keeps me good company. Goes like this.

One and a half cups of regular flour (not bread, not cake, it’s what they call unbleached all-purpose) made into a pie paste with eight or nine spoons of cold butter and enough (a few spoons; whatever it takes) of iced milk or heavy cream or water with an egg yolk, barely mixed. Put it in the fridge to set. Later on that night I introduced Giuseppe and Frenchy Pierre, the Euro boys, to my family’s favorite baked good, the Southern beaten biscuit, where the whole point is to dig your fingers deep into that soft mess, push it, pull it, tearing it apart and slapping it back, and ball up a fist and rocket-launch it right down the middle until the fleshy dough folds over your hand and caresses –redacted–

A slender, flexible boning knife is perfect for the filling, for taking apart three or four apples. Something with a bite under all that sweet, like a red Winesap or green, green Gravenstein is where you’re going. Me, I’m for that deep, dark sanguine hue. The blade goes right through that skin and peels it right off, leaves that gold-glowing ivory fruit flesh all open, and if you’re careful and committed, you can shave those insides so delicately they’re goddamned translucent—the meat so much not what it was, even you can’t tell anymore who… I mean, what it was. Soak the slices in fresh lemon juice, toss them with a salted brown sugar caramel seasoned with some cinnamon, less of nutmeg, and more of allspice—I know, of all things. Fold up the edges of that dough, and pleat it so it won’t leak… much. Bake three-quarters to a full hour at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, on parchment, on a steel pan on a heated bread stone, if you have one, until it all looks done well. Spread a little melted berry jam on the hot crusty edge, then maybe a few sliced almonds. Cool and crisp on a rack to room temperature…

Get hold of a wire whip… sorry, whisk. Yes, grab up a whip whisk—one of those things with all those splayed razor-y wires in a big balloon—three spoons of sugar and a pinch of salt in a half pint of heavy cream and have at it, cradling the bowl in the crux of your elbow hard enough, tight enough… opening and elevating the blank-white fat to the air, recreating it, until the cream stands in prideful peaks and flaunts each new set of cracks and crevices and flayings.

Until the intended whipped cream topping turns to sugary butter.

God. Damn.

Listen, my first try, I came pretty close to making cheese. Next. Get the other half-pint you so thoughtfully purchased and do it right, you bastard. You do need to be a little hard on yourself, from time to time. Then I figure I’ve earned a drizzle of that melted berry jam, ’specially if it’s raspberry—thick, slick and red, just tumbling down those ruts and running over the piled cream topping. It’s inspiring, I say.

It inspired my farewell to the Euro boys, so long ago.

(Mixed voices of security personnel, urging Lou to wrap it up and prepare to be loaded into the olive drab military surplus panel truck for his trip into the night, to the world of ADX. Lou nodded assent.)

I liked him, ol’ Giuseppe, and I blade… sorry, bade him good night…  well, goodbye… with “arrivederci… avanti…” softly, over and over, until speaking to him became… pointless.

Frenchy Pierre, well, a lot less love was lost there, I’m sorry to say. As I slid one last thrust between his ribs, my free hand squeezed his cheeks together to turn a moaning, long-voweled “ohhh” into a purse-lipped, short-voweled “oooo,” I leaned in over what remained of the ear he had left, and whispered, “laaa… laaa…”

GC: He whistled a familiar old-timey tune on his way to the transport, from the end of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, and lifted the lyric to say goodbye.

“We’ll meet again,” he lied, same as he did to haunt Giuseppe in the next life with arrivederci. “Don’t know where, don’t know when.”

“Sure we will,” I said. “That’s money, officer.”

“And it’ll be a bright and sunny day, all right. For sure. So long, Gary. Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford, signing off.” He saluted, crisply, like he still wore the Old Smokey hat. “Over and out.”

 

For his amazing efforts, gourmand Gary wins a free copy of the The MWA Cookbook, now on sale.