Joyce Britton was born bubbly, extroverted, eager for challenges and hungry-in sum, a person destined to enjoy parties and master the art of party- giving. And she has. In the cozy, charming Hyde Park home she is gradually renovating and redecorating, the adult Britton entertains with flair, elegance, taste-and without help.
Single, single-minded and just a little stubborn, she revels in the role of solo party-giver.
In a time when dining out is ”in,” she prefers to entertain at home because she thinks ”it`s fun to bring people together to meet and mix in a comfortable setting” and because she ”loves to cook. I really believe good food is basic to a good party.”
Yet her formula isn`t for everyone. Despite her demanding workload as a busy young lawyer, she insists on being her own planner, shopper, expediter, chief cook and bottle-washer. Nor does the explosion of ready-to-eat foods sold in markets ease her task. She cooks the old-fashioned way, starting with ingredients in their raw state.
How does she do it all? Through detailed planning and hard work. What`s her reward? Seemingly a great deal of pleasure. ”I have a reason to make food and share it-to share old friends and make new ones, maybe inspire people to do a party of their own.”
Britton has a three-stage plan of action for each party. First she decides how many people she will ask, issues invitations and plans her menu. Second, she makes a shopping list. Third, she constructs a day-by-day, even hour-by-hour list of ”everything I have to do and when I`m going to do it. That way I don`t forget small details like buying ice or chilling the wine, and I can mesh heavy chores like grocery shopping into light work days.
”I have a friend who shops Saturday afternoon when company is coming Saturday night. I can`t do that. I like chili or pizza on paper plates if it`s someone else`s party. But in my home, I need time to do something special. I don`t want to intimidate or overwhelm my guests, but I believe they should notice that it`s not a normal meal.”
She recalls, among other favorites, brunch for 45 in a two-bedroom apartment. She was ”almost smothered,” but from the tiny Pullman kitchen came shrimp and scallops in a beer-and-coconut batter, lobster in a white wine-cream sauce and green beans with almonds. On another occasion she did a twist on the traditional fish fry, making the fish in a featherlight batter, substituting a broccoli-carrot-caulifl ower salad for coleslaw and adding hot Italian garlic bread plus a side dish of sauteed apples and onions.
If all this suggests that what to cook and how to cook it is possibly the least of Britton`s concerns as a hostess, it should. Her comfortable kitchen is stocked with first-rate cookware, cooking tools, cookbooks and cooking-school diplomas. There are a needlepoint sampler of a woman chef, a gift made by her sister; and several signs on the walls from a historic lunchroom in the Loop that closed; another sign reads, ”Skinny cooks can`t be trusted.”
Britton remembers invading the kitchen at age 7, convincing her mother to allow her to chop candied fruit and help bake Christmas cookies. ”My mother baked a lot,” she says. ”We`d go crazy over her fried fruit pies. And my father was a wonderful Southern cook. I`ve never tasted anything to equal his fried corn or skillet cornbread. Our family parties revolved around food, especially at holiday time, and my mother always had pretty things to serve the food in. So I grew up with a sense of how things should taste and how important it is for food to have eye appeal.”
A Type-A personality, even at age 12, she convinced her mother to allow her to go downtown alone to a cooking demonstration at Peoples Gas. She counted herself as one of the few girls in her high school class who actually wanted to take home economics and first cooked for friends on a hot plate in her college dorm.
She took enough time away from the stove to graduate from the University of Illinois at Chicago, then earn a master`s degree in communications and her law degree. Her graduation present to herself, however, was more school-a week`s course at the celebrated La Varenne cooking school in Paris. She also studied at Dumas Pere here.
”I didn`t go to learn how to cook,” she says. ”I assumed they assumed you already knew how to cook. I went to refine my cooking techniques. I wanted to make a perfect hollandaise every time, not just because I was lucky but because I knew what can make it fail.”
The confidence that prompted her to talk her way into the New Orleans kitchen of Chef Paul Prudhomme for a day allows her to take chances that less experienced cooks might not. ”At first I was reluctant to leave my guests,” she says. ”But some of the food I wanted to make (flamed dessert souffles, for instance) needed last-minute cooking. Then I discovered everybody likes coming into the kitchen and actually likes to help.” She invites them to watch, lend a hand stirring or to carry food to the dining room as she serves it.
Britton`s parties may be informal, two dozen or more guests scattered on all three floors of her home. Or they may be sit-down meals for six or eight accompanied by candles, flowers and wine. The mood might be stuffy if it weren`t for the exuberant personality of the hostess (who insists ”the conversation has to be fun, even when the food is fancy”) and the dining table, a stylish glass oval perched on a grapevine sculpture.
When the meal ends, she invokes her one fixed rule for guests: ”No one can help clean up.” Instead she falls back on what may be her true secret weapon as a hostess without help:
”I really don`t mind washing dishes,” she says. ”The cleanup always looks worse than it is.”
JOYCE BRITTON`S AUTUMN WEEKEND BRUNCH FOR 12 TO 16 FRIENDS
Champagne
Assorted fruit juices
Sparkling water with lime slices
Onion tart
Mushroom-and-walnut salad
Warm duck-and-pear salad
Miniature squash filled with squash puree
Fried hot-water bread with green-onion filling
Sweet-potato cheesecake
Lemon-buttermilk cake with raspberry sauce
Jamaican coffee
Jasmine tea
Calimyrna figs, dried prunes
and apricots, assorted nuts
Chocolate candies and mints
Note: Portions for the recipes that follow are in context of Joyce Britton`s menu. If serving them as part of a simpler menu, count 8 to 10 servings per recipe. She adapted the duck salad from ”The Silver Palate Cookbook” by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins (Workman, $10.95) and the lemon-buttermilk cake from ”Talk About Good,” a cookbook of the Junior League of Baton Rouge.
FRIED HOT-WATER BREAD WITH GREEN-ONION FILLING
One dozen cakes
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water
Safflower oil
1 cup chopped green onions, including most of the green portion
1. Put flour and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Turn the machine on and pour the boiling water in through the top in a continuous stream. Continue processing for 45 seconds. The dough will be shiny and elastic. Make a ball of the dough and cover it tightly with plastic wrap. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
2. While dough is resting, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a pan and saute green onions until just wilted.
3. Place dough on a floured surface and roll out with a floured rolling pin into a rectangle approximately 14 by 16 inches. Spoon the wilted green onions over the dough in an even layer. Working from the short side, roll the dough up like a jelly roll.
4. Cut into 12 rounds. Put each between two sheets of lightly floured waxed paper and press down with the flat of the hand to make a flat circle.
(The dough may be refrigerated at this point.)
5. Shortly before serving, pour 1 inch of oil into a skillet. Heat just short of smoking and cook the cakes, one at a time, until just golden brown. Turn once. Drain on paper towels.
MUSHROOM-AND-WALNUT SALAD
12 servings
1/2 pound white mushrooms, rinsed, trimmed, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
Pepper to taste
3 tablespoons walnut oil
2 tablespoons safflower oil
4 ounces walnuts, chopped
3 heads Boston lettuce, rinsed, dried, torn into bite-sized pieces
1. Toss mushroom slices with lemon juice, cover and refrigerate for up to 1 hour.
2. Make dressing by whisking together the vinegar, salt and pepper, then slowly stirring in the oils. Taste, correct seasoning and pour into a small jar with a tight-fitting lid. Do not refrigerate.
3. When ready to serve, place mushrooms, walnuts and lettuce in a bowl. Shake dressing well, then pour over salad. Toss, taste and correct seasoning if desired.
DUCK-AND-PEAR SALAD WITH MANGO-CHUTNEY DRESSING
12 servings
2 ducks, about 4 1/2 pounds each, fresh or completely thawed
1 cup packaged wild and brown rice (see note)
1/2 cup packaged herb rice
3 to 4 ribs celery (to yield 1 cup chopped)
4 green onions
1 orange
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 cup bottled lemon juice
3 pears, ripe but firm
Lettuce leaves
2 cups mango-chutney dressing (recipe follows)
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Roast ducks on rack for 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. When cool, remove skin and fat and discard or reserve for another recipe. Cut meat from bones. Make small cubes from larger pieces of breast and leg meat and coarsely chop the rest. (This may be done ahead.)
2. Prepare rice by package directions and allow to cool. Chop celery. Cut green onions on the diagonal into 1/2-inch pieces. Grate rind of the orange. 3. In mixing bowl, combine duck meat, cooked rice, celery, green onions, orange rind and salt and pepper to taste. Toss to mix well. Taste and correct seasoning if desired. Cover bowl with plastic wrap until ready to serve.
4. Pour lemon juice into mixing bowl. Peel pears, if desired. Cut them in half, remove cores and cut into thin slices, transferring slices to bowl with lemon juice. Toss and cover with plastic wrap until ready to serve.
5. Arrange duck salad on serving platter lined with lettuce leaves. Garnish with pear slices and set on a buffet with the mango-chutney dressing and a pepper mill nearby.
Note: Joyce Britton uses ”Lundberg County Wild Rice,” a combination of wild and brown rice produced in California.
MANGO-CHUTNEY DRESSING
About three cups
1 egg
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
1/4 cup vinegar (raspberry or blueberry preferre
1/3 cup mango chutney
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups salad oil
1. Place egg, yolks, mustard, vinegar, chutney, soy sauce plus a little salt and pepper in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Process until well blended, about 1 minute.
2. With machine running, add oil in slow stream until it is all incorporated in the mixture.
3. Transfer dressing to bowl, adjust seasoning as desired, then cover and refrigerate until 30 minutes before serving.
4. Pour dressing into sauce boats and pass at the table.
LEMON-BUTTERMILK CAKE
12 servings
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3 cups sugar
5 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons lemon extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
Raspberry sauce (recipe follows)
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. In electric mixer, cream butter. Add sugar and cream again. Add yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
2. In a cup, combine 1/2 cup buttermilk with baking soda. In a second cup, combine remaining buttermilk with lemon extract; salt and stir well.
3. With mixer running, add 1 cup flour to creamed mixture. When incorporated, slowly add buttermilk-and-soda mixture. Add second cup of flour, remaining buttermilk, then final cup of flour.
4. Beat egg whites to form soft peaks. Fold into batter.
5. Pour batter into well-oiled 10-inch tube pan or Bundt pan. Bake in middle of oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until small cracks are visible on top of the cake and cake springs back lightly when touched.
6. Remove cake from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before unmolding on rack. (This cake freezes well.) Slice just before serving with raspberry sauce on the side.
Raspberry sauce: Heat 2 packages (10 ounces each) frozen raspberries in a saucepan with sugar to taste. Puree and strain through a sieve. If desired, add 1/4 cup of raspberry or creme de cassis liqueur.
JOYCE`S SWEET-POTATO CHEESECAKE
12 servings
Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham-cracker crumbs
1/3 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sifted confectioners` sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Filling:
3 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup drained, mashed canned yams
1/2 cup canned yam syrup or orange juice
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Topping:
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup confectioners` sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. For crust, mix graham-cracker crumbs, melted butter, sugar and cinnamon in bowl. Press mixture firmly into bottom of 9-inch springform pan.
2. For filling, put egg yolks, cream cheese and sugar in mixing bowl. Beat until thoroughly blended. Remove bowl from mixer. Add condensed milk, yams, 1/2 cup of reserved yam sauce, orange rind, nutmeg and cinnamon. Stir by hand until completely combined.
3. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Fold into filling mixture. Do not overmix.
4. Pour filling into springform pan. Smooth top. Bake in middle of the oven 35 to 40 minutes until set but center still wiggles slightly. Let cool on wire rack 30 minutes before releasing springform. Cool completely. Serve at room temperature or chilled.
5. Before serving, prepare topping. In mixing bowl, combine sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Blend well. When cake is cool, spread topping over top and sides of the cake, or pipe it through a pastry bag. Alternatively, present it in a sauceboat when serving the cake.
