Gt. Barrington-based baker and writer makes it look easy

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Baking remains to me a mysterious art, something for which my temperament and my oven don’t seem well suited. A special gift, part science part art: it's better to leave it to the professionals. Right? Peggy Cullen Matlow of Great Barrington — gifted baker, food writer, and food stylist for Food and Wine and other beautiful magazines — could be one of those bakers who confirms this idea. She’s been working with flour since her mother, an artist, taught her to make her own Playdough®, since her great aunts from Eastern Europe baked their strudel, rugulah and kikheleh (Yiddish for cookie), with her at their side. She’s run bakeries, baked at famous restaurants, was the first baking major at the Culinary Institute of America. But instead of making this art more mysterious, she does what her great-aunts might have done: brings the baking back into the kitchen, (where, in one alcove, her computer and other cookbook writing gear are located), and brings you to her side. The result: I leave tempted to try my hand at something easy to start, biscuit dough or thyme squares: they go nicely with fresh fruit, lightly cooked with sugar and lemon. Cullen lives in Great Barrington with her husband, Andy Matlow, a trompe l’oeil artist and owner of Great Barrington Cottage Company: he builds new houses that look and feel old. High on the hill overlooking the town and off at the hills to the east, her fire slate-topped kitchen island serves as our coffee table. She tells about food styling: a craft not many know about, in which she bakes the dessert and then sets up the photo shoot for the magazine’s photographer. Most magazines don’t let writers do their own food styling, but Food and Wine allows her and they’ve even asked her to do the styling for other bakers: “I don’t do chicken; I don’t do lettuce,” she says, only baked goods. Cullen's food writing includes magazines: Saveur, Food and Wine and Martha Stewart Living. Since moving from New York to Great Barrington she’s written a cookie cookbook, got milk? the cookie book, and is now writing a caramel cookbook for the same publisher, Chronicle Books. Growing up in Cullen’s childhood home there was always a project: her mother, the artist, would set up birthday parties with themes: a skating party with the cake a skate. Her mother wasn’t a baker but she was a good cook, and good with her hands. Cullen has always worked with her hands, too, and after college she studied at Boston’s Museum School of Fine Arts. Financial necessity brought an epiphany that early on set her off on her her life’s course. A starving artist in Boston she had to decide how to make a living. Somewhere in her mind was this idea, “almost a memory,” of having a restaurant or an inn or a hotel. She’d never worked in a restaurant but she decided to try it. She applied at a hot Cambridge spot, The Harvest, a “casual expensive” place on the forefront of the trends in nouvelle American cuisine in the mid-’70s. It was a fun place to be, “an exciting time to be getting into food,” she says. Their baker had just walked out, and since “one of my starving-artist jobs had been a baker,” and rolling out dough and baking had been a childhood hobby with her aunts, they hired her. “All my art training went into it,” says Cullen: intuitively working with the materials, and creating something beautiful, baking was good hard work and she loved it. At $160 a week full of 13-hour days, within two weeks she was managing the department of five people. “Art is a solitary endeavor,” she says, and this restaurant life gave her something new: the camaraderie of the kitchen. It was very physical; it was about color and texture; it was creative and it actually paid. And they ate it. The heaviness of art, the temptation to analyze it, the pressure, gone: tasted, swallowed, remembered and gone. After The Harvest, Cullen ran bakeries in Boston and in New York. She baked in the startup Sara Beth’s kitchen and for Eli Zabar; she ran a candy business out of her kitchenless apartment — Lucky Star Sweets — and in between, attended the Culinary Institute. Cullen rattles off recipes, rifling through files of articles she’s written, quickly. The cookie book is unusual in that it’s arranged by cookie type rather than how they’re made: so shortbreads — whether pressed, piped or rolled — are all together; meringues and macaroons, with their egg whites and crunchy texture, together too. “In the back of my mind I’m always writing for people who don’t have a clue about how to bake ... they’ve never seen dough rolled out. It can’t be too wordy” — a long recipe will intimidate — but it has to explain the process precisely. “I’ve done my share of the wild and wacky elaborate deserts,” Cullen says, but when she writes she wants to give people “guaranteed results with little time in the kitchen.” Here are a few simple recipes, easy enough for non-bakers and quick enough to do in the summer without a lot of time near a hot oven. Thyme Squares From got milk, the cookie book (Chronicle Books) 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened 1/3 cup superfine sugar Finely grated zest of one large lemon 2 tsps. finely chopped fresh thyme, leaves only, plus 16 small sprigs for decoration 1 cup all-purpose flour Granulated sugar for sprinkling Makes 16, two-inch squares. The fragrances of lemon and thyme permeate these sweet little shortbread squares. The fresh herb is finely chopped and mixed into the dough, along with grated zest. Pinch tiny sprigs of thyme from the top of the stems and press them into the center of each square before they’re baked. Other herbs, such as rosemary, lavender, or mint, can be substituted for the thyme. • Preheat the oven to 325 F. • In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer or by hand using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, beat the butter, superfine sugar, and lemon zest until well combined. Do not over mix; you don’t want the batter to become fluffy. Scrape down the bowl using a rubber spatula and beat for a few more seconds. Add the chopped thyme. sift the flour into the bowl with a rubber spatula and mix again for a few seconds. Turn the dough onto the table, gather it together, and knead gently into a smooth mass. • Flatten the dough and pat it evenly into an ungreased eight-inch-square baking dish. (It helps to place plastic wrap directly on the dough as you pat to prevent your hand from sticking.) Using a sharp knife, score into 16 squares. Place a small sprig of thyme in the center of each square. cover with plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least one hour or overnight. • Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the squares turn golden. Immediately sprinkle generously with granulated sugar, then use a knife to cut all the way through along the scored lines. Transfer the baking dish to a wire rack to cook completely. When cook, remove the cookies using a small spatula. (Cullen says this recipe is especially good with a plate of fresh fruit, for a “lovely simple summer dessert or afternoon tea.”) Fresh fruit lightly cooked with lemon and sugar is what goes best with almost any summer dessert, and she suggests it for a pass around the table with slightly under whipped fresh cream and biscuits made from this dough. Biscuit dough — to use with fruit, as cobbler, shortcake or fruit “pizza” recipe below From Easier than Pie, Peggy Cullen Food and Wine, Aug. 1995 (Makes eight shortcake biscuits) 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tbsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 1 stick (4 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice 3/4 cup cold milk • In a food processor, pulse the flour, baking powder and salt until mixed. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles course meal with particles the size of peas and lentils, about 40 times. • Drizzle the milk evenly over the dry ingredients and pulse a few times, just until incorporated and the dough forms small clumps. • Turn out the dough onto a work surface and knead once or twice to gather it into a mass: do not overwork the dough. Gently pat the dough into disk or rectangle, as needed. (The dough can be made up to two hours ahead; wrap tightly and refrigerate.) Summer Fruit Pizza made from biscuit dough Any fruit can be used for this very colorful free-form tart. Alternatively, you can make small individual pizzas or tarts. Roll the dough into a log and slice crosswise into equal pieces, then roll each piece into a round and top with the fruit as described. (Makes one nine-inch pizza) 1/2 recipe of Biscuit Dough, patted into a disk 2 tbsps. unsalted butter, melted 1 small plum, pitted and sliced 1/4 inch thick 1/2 peach, pitted and sliced 1/4 inch thick 1/2 cup raspberries 1/2 cup strawberries, halved 1/2 cup blackberries or blueberries 3-1/2 tbsps. sugar Whipped cream for serving • Preheat the oven to 450 F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the Biscuit Dough into a nine-inch round; do not roll any larger. Fold in half and transfer to a heavy ungreased baking sheet. Unfold the dough and smooth edges. • Using a pastry brush, lightly coat the dough with some of the melted butter. Arrange the fruit in a decorative overlapping pattern all the way to the edge of the dough, fanning the plum and peach slices and clustering the berries. Dab the fruit with the remaining butter. Sprinkle 2-1/2 tablespoons of the sugar over the fruit. • Bake the pizza for 20 minutes, or until the bottom is golden brown. Remove the pizza from the oven and turn on the broiler. Sprinkle the remaining one tablespoon sugar over the fruit. Broil for about one minute, watching carefully, until the fruit begins to bubble and brown. Slide the pizza onto a rack to cook slightly. Serve warm with ginger or other whipped cream.
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Clarksburg Students Create 'I Voted' Stickers to Promote Elections

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — Town Clerk Marilyn Gomeau was disappointed at last year's town election turnout. Fewer than 100 voters cast ballots that day. 
 
She's been thinking of ways to encourage more participation and turned to the town's youngest residents. 
 
They might not be able to vote yet, she said, but it's never too early to get them interested, and then extend that excitement to their parents. 
 
Gomeau's idea was to involve the students at Clarksburg School through a contest to come up with the best "I voted" stickers. The top three have been printed and will be given out to voters in the coming elections. 
 
She and Linda LeWitt of the Board of Registrars said it was hard to come up with the best ones, "they were really very good." 
 
But one in particular stood out, created by Avery Marcil, which showed two hands, one Black and one white, creating a heart with an American flag. It states "Our Future Is in Your Hands."
 
"Her creation was wonderful. It speaks very loudly all about diversity, and that's what we talk about. We talk about diversity, and we all know, there's a lot of diversity in this world," Gomeau said in handing out certificates to the winners last week. 
 
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