Tuesday, May 24, 2022
The Belle of Amherst
- Who's watched: M & G
- Mentions: None
- Commentary: Decades ago, when this show debuted on PBS, Mom and I watched it separately, then together during a serendipitous visit when it was being aired again, and, as well, during one of those watchings I recorded it off the TV and we listened to it many times. Over the last year the desire to listen to it, again, came up between us and I couldn't find the old casette tape, so I scoured the internet and found a copy of the original video production. We watched it at least twice before Mom died. We enjoyed it as much as we did the first time around. Definitely a shared-favorite! We both felt that Julie Harris did a wonderful job of portraying a highly self-possessed, talented wordsmith of a woman who wasn't so much shy as a joyful loner.
You'll notice that I did not link a review of this DVD to my title, I linked the section of the play wherein Dickinson narates her recipe for Black Cake. It's fun to contemplate. You might want to read a review for the televised version. Here is a link to the only review I could find for the televised version. The play production that was televised was presented at the Longacre Theatre in Manhattan, New York, in 1976. The film was not processed for DVD release for 28 years, even though it appeared on television through PBS much earlier than that.
One last surprise! I scoured the net and found a scaled down recipe for Dickinson's Black Cake. It reads very much like my mother's yearly process for making fruit cakes, down to the wax paper lining the baking pans, except that my mother included a larger variety of candied fruits and nuts, always nuts, specifically pecans, which I think were singled out because, to the taste, they are a sweet nut. I think I like Dickinson's variety better. My mother did not like cooking or baking, although she wasn't bad at it, so she trained us daughters in home culinary skills very early, as soon as we expressed an interest. She was, however, dogged about taking on the task of making seasonal fruitcakes herself. She gave them as gifts, and always kept a few for us, her family, to happily munch. She also "soaked" (her word) the cakes much more liberally with a variety of sweet fruit brandies than this recipe recommends. My father also, yearly, took over one of her cakes and soaked his even more than my mother soaked hers. Oh, it was always a Merry Holiday Season for all at our house when I was a child!
Update 5/24/22: Yet another post published on 4/09/09 that "disappeared" and I had to recapture.
There is a Wikipedia write-up for the play as it appeared at the above location in New York, but it's of little use.
Release Date: 2004
Directed by Charles S. Dubin.
Labels: audio-visual, biography1, period3, shared-favorite, TV1
