Governors Island

If you take a train, a subway, a cab and a ferry you can get from our house in Ossining to Governors Island in a mere couple of hours.  No, this isn’t a Steve Martin/John Candy film, but a snippet from real life we discovered last Saturday while trying to attend a birthday party for our friend’s 4 year old.  Sometimes the journey is fun, and sometimes it just seems a bit like an exercise in patience.  That’s the magic of mass transit on the weekend in NYC…you never know what subway line is being worked on, where a shuttle bus will replace missing trains and why on earth it seems that everyone is trying to get to the same place as you.  Happily, I’m here to report the destination was definitely worth the trip.

I’d wanted to go to Governors Island for several years now.  It’s been on my list of semi-touristy, but still somewhat unattended sites since I saw a small segment about it on a New York City destinations program.  The island itself is out in the harbor not far from South Street Seaport and within very close proximity to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  What I remember being most intrigued about were the preserved military structures and houses found dotting the island.

The U.S. military occupied Governors Island since the founding of our country.  Much like the island of Manhattan, we were able to purchase the landmass from the Native American Indians for a steal.  Its first real mention of importance was as a military base used by George Washington in 1776 in an attempt to hold ground against the British.  Sadly, he was pushed back for some time, but we eventually prevailed and the island has continued to be a stronghold for the military ever since. 

The island served as not only a military base but also a prison for Confederate Soldiers during the civil war.  There is a structure called Williams Castle seated on the western side of the island, crumbling but beautiful, which was used for the prison.  In the center of the island is a fort, and staggered along it’s sides are two eroding lanes of brick sidewalk leading respectively to houses the military occupied as well as what appears to be old barracks (not unlike college dorms from another time).

The architecture is beautiful.  I am, and always have been obsessed with architecture, especially that of older homes and community structures.  Although the United States isn’t that elderly when you compare it to other countries, we did have some lovely things going for ourselves on the architectural front in recent centuries.  Because of its continuous inhabitance by military personnel through 1996, the structures on Governors Island have been well maintained.

There is an air of the past here, an air much like people were happily living on the island and suddenly vanished.  The houses are antiseptically clean and taken care of, but there is no furniture on the porch nor can you really see any sign of human life from the outside.  It made me think of a film where someone had suddenly kidnapped a whole town, wiped the place down and acted like they never existed.  I’m sure that’s not the intention, but it was the feeling I got.   It’s interesting too because the houses are situated underneath giant old trees with a big communal lawn…it feels like houses that got picked up and sat down neat and orderly in a park.  Whatever it was, to me it was beautiful and slightly eerie.

As I said, the island hasn’t been occupied since 1996.  After 30 years as the largest Coast Guard base in the country, it was sold back to New York for a minimal sum and is now being protected and converted into a park preserve for people to enjoy in the future.  The island is only open during the summer and early fall, and I’m glad we finally had a good excuse to get out there and enjoy it.

It was a perfect day for a birthday party.  I guess any day would have been perfect if you were still four years old, but the weather was particularly grand.  Blue skies, warm weather and lots of kids to play with while moms and dads tried to eat cheeses in between bike rides and drink wine in between trying to get everyone to play nicely together.  It was exhausting just watching it all, but for our friend’s Joe and Marie it seemed worth the effort.  Both Lach (the birthday boy) and their younger son Jack seemed to have a fantastic time and that’s all that really matters.

The distance we traveled to get there made it seem like a vacation day, and the weather suddenly switching to summer once more helped out that relaxed sort of picnic feeling.  Taking a ferry is something special too.  To be out in the harbor, looking back at the city I love and hanging out with Brian for the afternoon was a great treat and reminded us of the scene in Working Girl where Melanie Griffith is taking the Staten Island Ferry to the city, a proud secretary destined for greatness.  When you see the city from that distance there is no way you can’t be moved.  It’s a strong entity all it’s own which bestows greatness or can swallow you whole…the city makes you want to succeed, to be worthy of it’s tall glass and metal structures.

When I got back to Manhattan I casually walked around Battery Park as the sun was starting to set.  Brian had to go do a show and I wandered around in a post chocolate shake haze from Mr. Softee (those are darn good shakes).  Having an hour to myself in the city, equipped with my camera as the sun goes down is a rare treat.  There are lots of tourists, but also lots of regular city folks sitting on benches near the water’s edge trying to get a breather and a view of nature.  The sun was shining brightly on the WWII memorial, creating long, towering shadows receding from the tablets of names bearing fallen military soldiers.

By the time I got home I was feeling pretty exhausted, a belly full of cheese and chocolate shake notwithstanding, but I did want to get a coffee cake in the oven.  I had been eyeing another one of Fanny Farmer’s pastry recipes (from the 1895 cookbook) and wanted to give it a go.  Much like last week’s foray into 19th century baking, again there was no real recipe or oven temperatures or even pan sizes, depths etc.  Luckily I have been known to bake a coffee cake from time to time and relied on past experience to get me through.

I was mainly interested in flavor combinations.  This coffee cake actually calls for 1 Cup of coffee.  I don’t remember any coffee cakes I’ve made in the past requiring the namesake.  Sure, you get sour cream or buttermilk or the likes from time to time, but I was excited by the proposition of fresh brewed coffee mingled with molasses, currants, orange zest and lots and lots of spices.  The recipe I adapted is as follows:

Rich Coffee Cake

Batter

2 sticks butter (room temperature)

2 cups sugar

4 eggs (room temperature)

2 tablespoons molasses

1 cup room temperature coffee

3 3/4 cups flour

5 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon mace

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups currants

Zest of one navel orange

Topping/Filling

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 3/4 cups flour

1 cup light-brown sugar

2 sticks butter (room temperature)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter or spray (with vegetable spray) a 10” angel food cake pan with removable bottom. 

First make your topping by whisking all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and then adding in your softened butter with a pastry cutter.  “Cut in” the butter until you have large crumbs.  (Alternately you could combine all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until you get a large crumb mixture.)  Set aside.

For the batter, mix the butter and sugar together on medium high (if using a Kitchen Aid) for about 4 minutes until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until combined after each egg.  Add in the molasses and orange zest.

In a separate mixing bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and all the spices.  Alternately add the dry ingredients and coffee to the batter (starting and ending with the flour mixture) being careful not to over-mix.  Fold in the currants by hand.

Pour half the batter into your angel food pan.  Place half of your topping on top of the batter…this will essentially make a buttery, sugary filling layer.  Pour the rest of the batter into the pan (on top of the crumble mixture) and cover with the remaining topping.  Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes depending on your oven.  You can start testing your cake after an hour to see if it’s done (oven temperatures can vary). Let the cake remain in the pan for about ten minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

This is a big cake!!!  I baked it in a tall, ten inch angel food cake pan and it still was escaping out of the top…it must be the 5 teaspoons of baking powder.  Though the original cake recipe doesn’t call for the crumbly topping, I adapted a topping from a Martha Stewart cake recipe I like.  The cardamom brings the butter and brown sugar to life, but isn’t overpowering, and the cake itself is wonderfully dense and spicy.  There is a lot of flour and butter here, no question about that, but the shear volume of ingredients effectively spread out the spices and made it refreshing instead of cloying.

I won’t try to pretend I made a “historic” cake to fit with a visit to a historic site, but the coffee cake really did fit the bill.  I’m enjoying trying to revive these old cake recipes and see what the prominent flavor profiles were like back in 1895.  I’m seeing quite a bit of citrus and heavy use of spice throughout, but I’ve also been homing in on desserts that put me in that fall state of mind.  This is the time of year when I feel I can use spices not allowed during the spring and summer months.  Though I know there aren’t any baking police holding a gun to my head demanding I stay away from them, my internal baking clock seems to know what it wants based on the weather change. 

These flavors make me think of a homey space and place to unwind.  Whether you are housed on an island while serving with the military or living in a house on a quiet neighborhood street, this is the coffee cake to try if you are looking for a taste of fall.  It packs a punch but is also gentle and friendly.  It’s the kind of cake that beckons you to sit and have a slice with coffee or tea, call over your best girlfriends or neighbors for a gossip session and let your hair down.  If pastry can accomplish that, then it has performed a fine service indeed.  Our army of freelancers at work gobbled it down in record time and I was proud to have done my duty to mankind.  It’s just who I am.