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Music, Food and Art

Music - Food - Art #2

Tom Waits, Sachertorte, Kienholz

by Cork Marcheschi

31-Year-Cake Sachertorte

The Food

Last week I was having dinner at one of my favorite San Francisco eateries, Weird Fish. There were six of us, and it was an extra good time. The company couldn't be beat, the conversation and laughter was natural and the food is always great. We sat at a window table, watching life on 18th and Mission flow by; this is always a wonderful show.

One of the things that Weird Fish offers is a surprise dessert. They will not tell you what the dessert is - they won't even hint at it. I went for the surprise; a sweet surprise seemed to be in keeping with the enjoyment of the evening.

About ten minutes later our server showed up with a number of desserts and mine hit the table last. I couldn't see what he was holding until it left the general dimness of the room and entered the pool of light directly over the table. SACHERTORTE!!!!!!! The excitement in my voice startled the server. My experience at that moment was of 31 years collapsing into the last time I had eaten this Austrian delight.

I looked at it with mild astonishment and knew that no one else at the table would taste this dessert.

In 1978 I won the Berlin Prize (DAAD.) This is an award that brings you, and your family if you have one, to Berlin to live and work for one year. All of your expenses are paid, you have a generous stipend, an apartment, a studio and in my case I also had a German art dealer who had set up five solo museum shows in Germany and Holland. I had my first museum catalog, I also designed sets for Samuel Beckett and Robert Wilson, I went flea market shopping in Paris with Ed Kienholz, I made friends, saw the sun come up over the Berlin wall, and was treated (by the general populous) with respect as an artist (not an American experience!). All of this plus much more was cinematically zoomed into focus as I tasted the Sachertorte.

In Berlin there were three major department stores: Herte (equivalent of JC Penney), Whertheim (Macy's) and KaDeWe (Neiman Marcus + +). All of them had cafes, cafeterias and bakeries in them. The bakery at Wertheim was just inside the entrance - a round counter constructed of chrome and glass. Inside this clean and shiny ring were three German women in white uniforms and scrubbed pink skin. They were surrounded by an amazing organization of cakes, tortes, and other things sweet. Donna's (my wife at the time and still my good friend) and my attention was drawn to a perfectly round, squat and precisely frosted chocolate cake with the word "Sacher" written twelve times in a tight script. The letters descended in scale from a large S at the perimeter of the cake to a small r at the center. When the cake was cut, the relationship of the edge of each wedge was proportionate to the lettering. We had been in Berlin two days and the first Deutschmark spent was on Sachertorte! I made the universal gesture for "UHH - me want cake." As the cake was cut and removed from the hockey puck proportioned disc, a dark, dense and tightly structured core revealed itself. There was no goo or cream or other obvious layer. There was one thin vein of something that looked more like a stain than a layer of dessert spackle. If I had spent more time on dessert paleontology, I would have recognized the strata.

The same stain lay directly under the entire helmet-smooth chocolate frosting/glaze. The slice was wrapped, laid into a little coffin like box and put into a blue and gold bag with braided handles. About an hour later we were at the brand new, empty apartment on Marriannan Platz. We sat down with our Sachertorte and I noticed that the grain of the chocolate body of the cake reminded me of pressboard. I took a bite…this was the cake-torte-dessert of a dessert dream that I had never had!!!

1978 was such a great year for me that it took me 22 years to get out from under the power of this experience.

Back at Weird Fish

I ate my piece of Sachertorte in a minor state of surprise and shock. I commented on the quality of the dessert experience and the server was moved to bring me another piece of torte, gratis.

When I lived in Berlin, I had at least two pieces of Sachertorte every week for a year. I tried it at the Herte Bakery, at the KaDeWe Bakery, and the cafes along the KuDam (chichi street) but decided that the Wertheim torte was the ONE! The cake is Austrian and traditionally has a layer of apricot jam directly under the hard chocolate frosting and one layer in the center. This is how Wertheim made their cake. The other aforementioned bakeries gave it a German twist by adding marzipan under the chocolate frosting. This also seemed to be the case in most other Berlin bakeries.

This is not a very American cake. It is not overly sweet, gooey, sticky or slathered with a butter cream frosting. The texture is dense and a bit dry, the frosting is thin, hard and shiny smooth, the taste is of dark chocolate and sharp apricot, not sugar. Traditionally a stiff, unsweetened whipped cream is served with the cake.

When I got home that evening I thought about the cake and why I hadn't hunted it down. I didn't stay with that thought very long, but decided I needed to make my own. This was my destiny: I was going to master and control a Sachertorte and make up for lost time.

When my year in Berlin was up, I didn't want to leave. I had friends, a gallery, I was making money, my marriage to Donna was falling apart and I had met a German woman. However I was (we were) also part of homesteading a house in Minneapolis, MN, where I was teaching and on sabbatical from my teaching gig. The house had been won in a lottery ($1). Great grants and loans were available to fix the house up. It was a 12-room Queen Anne on a city park. BUT! In order for the deal to be complete, the house needed to be lived in for three years after it was completed. If this didn't happen, gone were the grants, the good deal loan and the house. The sabbatical is the same thing, every seven years you can take a year off and get half salary BUT you must return for at least one more year of teaching. If it wasn't for these situations, I may have stayed.

The Music

This food takes me directly to a time and a place, so I think I will search for the music in the same time and place. When I went to Berlin I brought 24 cassette tapes and a tape player. I chose well as I never really tired of these tapes. There isn't a song that surfaces, but there is an artist, and that is Tom Waits.

The apartment was in Kreuzberg, a Turkish ghetto one stop from the end of the green U-Bahn (subway) line. I would get off the train at Kottbusser Tor and walk about 15 minutes to the apartment. The residents burned soft coal for heat in East Berlin and in this poor section of the west. The still winter afternoons would allow the coal haze to layer itself like a scrim with the western light behind it.

Little boys, smoking cigarettes and pushing broken-down baby buggies stacked high with scrap-wood, would cross the street as I walked toward home. These little boys also seemed to all wear sport coats that were at least one size too small so the sleeves were several inches above their wrists. The total image had the effect of watching an early silent film at the time before moviemakers learned to move (pan) the camera. All of the action was crisscrossing from the sides and fast. The wood in the carts was torn out of abandoned buildings, remnants of the war, and was used to heat the homes of the poor Turks that lived in Kreuzberg.

The apartment was right at the Berlin Wall. My studio window was about 30 yards from the wall. I would look at this barrier and think about the one night in 1961 when the Berlin Wall came into existence. The Eastern sector coordinated an amazing effort and in one fell swoop dropped enough barbed wire in a single night to physically divide this major world city. In 1978, Bernauer Strasse was the last, original remnant of the night when the wall went up. When the East was dropping the barbed wire they would occasionally come upon some row of houses and run the barbed wire directly up to each end of the row. At that moment, the occupants of these buildings had the choice to jump out of their front windows and be in the West or stay in their home and wake the next morning in the East.

The doors and windows of these row houses were eventually bricked solid; curtains and shades rotted and hung like Spanish moss over the brick. The Wall was political ideology manifested in its simplest physical form - a wall that divided a common people, graveyards, lakes, churches and families.

Living in Kreuzberg wasn't depressing at all. There was life in this neighborhood and the commerce of staying alive was everywhere. The patina of Tom Waits, pre Swordfish Trombones, seemed to be in the air. The Turks were invited into Germany after the war to help rebuild. The program was the "Guest Worker Program". Now, many years later with the dirty work done, the Turks were not welcome anymore. At that particular time the Berlin government was offering them 5,000 Marks (or so) per family member to go back to Turkey, but it wasn't happening. Very much like the down-and-out characters that Waits wrote about in his early period, the families of Kreuzberg were outcasts in the country they rebuilt.

One of the most colorful visuals I got from the neighborhood was from Turkish weddings. The car that the bride was going to be carried in had a unique decorative treatment that I'll try to describe. Let's start with a girl's doll, a decent sized doll, maybe 24 inches tall, with a hard rubber body. Now remove the legs and also flatten out the butt. Now knit a very bright and colorful dress for the doll. Sit the upper half of the doll in the center of the hood of the car and keep knitting the dress until it completely covers the hood and reaches the front grill, kind of in a pink spider web fashion. I saw this at least a dozen times over my year there and it always made me feel good.

In 2006 Tom Waits released a 3-CD set called Orphans. On disc #3 there is a recitation by Waits of Charles Bukowski's poem Nirvana. I am not a huge fan of Bukowski, but Waits gets inside this little narrative and it feels very much like Billie Holiday, at the end of her career singing a slow blues. The torn edges of her voice are the witnesses to her life. Waits' belief in art and people is present in this reading. When you listen to it, sit down and cup both hands in front of you as if you were to hold water in them, then let the story settle in them and hold it. Art is real stuff and this reading is about the size of a bar of soap. Hold it. Nirvana by Bukowski through Waits expresses for me my very powerful year in an eventful life and the choice I was faced with: to stay in a place where I was treated with respect or return to my country where my profession was suspect and not considered essential to the body of the culture.

The Art

Over my year in Berlin I became friends with Ed Kienholz, George Rickey, Bob Helm and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Ed, George and Michelangelo were established artists whose work had entered the history books. Art history books are kind of like baseball cards, but they look more serious. To give these three artists baseball equivalents, it would be Mickey Mantel, Willy Mays and Hank Aaron. George taught me to weld and showed me how to make the bearings that made his mobiles work so well. Michelangelo and his wife Maria shared their vacation home in the Cinque Terre for a week. Ed Kienholz had been of special interest to me since I had seen his 1966 solo show at the LA County Museum. Ed did life-size tableaus depicting scenes of American life not usually focused on. His work was loved, hated, celebrated and scorned. Ed was a big guy, with a big voice, big appetite and one huge eyebrow that had the shape of a soaring gull. He was the Studs Turkel of the modern sculpture scene. In the years before he slowed his drinking to normal, he had a reputation in LA of being an old-fashioned hell raiser and bar fighter. He hated the formal language that art had been acquiring ever since Clement Greenberg took up Jackson Pollock as a cause. Ed had no formal art education but was a very savvy guy. He understood how the world worked and how to use it to his advantage. In the film Sometimes a Great Notion there is a scene based on one of Ed's actions. A shipping company damaged one of Ed's sculptures in transit. The company refused to pay the $500 claim. Ed called the LA Times and asked a photographer he knew to follow him for a good photo op. So Ed, the photographer and a chain saw, all went to the shipping company. Ed approached the receptionist and asked her what she thinks the desk she is sitting at is worth, she hums for a few seconds and Ed offered "Maybe $500?" She bobbed her head - Yes. He then asked her to step away from the desk, started the saw and cut the desk in half, all the while being photographed. Ed had caught the shipping company in a tight spot: they did damage, didn't pay and were now being recorded for the LA Times. In the film Henry Fonda is the actor who wields the chainsaw. Ed got his $500.

If I had to pick one piece of art from these artists it would come from Ed Kienholz. But instead of one of his sculptures, I think of Ed's funeral. Ed lived large and died the same way. He was buried in the front seat of a 1940 Packard Coupe. There was a dollar bill and a deck of cards in his shirt pocket, a 1931 bottle of Chianti was on the seat next to him, and the ashes of his dog, who had died two weeks earlier, were in the trunk. As bagpipes played, his wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz, steered the Packard, into the large hole that was Ed's grave.

Ed went out on his own terms, humming his own tune and collaborating with Nancy on one last sculpture.

It was art that brought me to Berlin and Germany. It was art that was my entry to a world of experiences that are as tangible today as they were 30 years ago. And there is no art without the artists. Never forget the simple fact that all of the stuff that fills museums comes from people and these people need to be celebrated more than their art.

So, lets make a Sachertorte and invite friends over.

Lets go:
Materials: 5 egg yolks

For the glaze: 6 oz. of dark semi-sweet chocolate at least 60% cocoa

double boiler - 8 or 9 inch spring-form cake pan, parchment paper, flexible frosting spatula is a help but not necessary, and a cooling rack.

Pre-heat oven to 350°
Start with a 9 inch spring-form cake pan.

• Cover the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and then clamp down the ring.
• Get a jar of very normal apricot jam - not spreadable fruit.
• Separate 6 egg whites (5 yolks - six whites) - do a good job and keep the whites clean.
• Using a mixer, cream 4 oz. sugar with 8 tablespoons of room temperature butter. Creaming introduces little bubbles that expand in the cooking process. There is no leavening in this recipe, so this is important.
• Now melt 6 oz. GOOD DARK semi-sweet chocolate, at least 55% cocoa. Chop it up with a kitchen knife until in small pieces. Melt this in a double boiler - do this at a simmer and do not let the top pan touch the bottom of the lower pan and do not let any water splash into the chocolate.
• Stir constantly with a spatula until completely melted and smooth.
• Now mix into the creamed sugar.
• Once that is mixed continue to mix and add one egg yolk at a time and the vanilla.
• Now with a mixer, beat the egg whites plus 2 tablespoons of sugar till stiff.
• Fold the stiff egg whites into the chocolate, butter - sugar, egg yolk batter.
• Folding in the egg whites also adds bubbles and will help the cake rise.
• Finally fold in the sifted flour.
• Spray Pam on the edges of the cake pan and put parchment paper on the bottom of the spring-form. You can use a big piece and just force the sides over it. Now pour in the batter. Cook for 30 minutes in the center of your oven.
• Check with a toothpick starting at 20 minutes. You do not want to over cook this at all.

When cooked, let cool for about 25 minutes and then remove from pan. Once the cake is completely cool you are going to take a very sharp and long knife and flatten the top of the cake by cutting the irregularities off. Next take the knife and carefully slice the cake through the center - hamburger bun style.

Separate the top and bottom. Now lets get the jar of apricot jam. Put about half of it in the microwave for about 30 seconds, just to make it easier to pour. Then pour into a blender and blend it.

With a long flexible spatula spread the apricot on the center layer of the cake - don't be skimpy. Put the top half on and now also cover the top of the cake with apricot.

For the icing - frosting - glaze. You want 6 oz. of really good DARK semi-sweet chocolate that has at least 60% cocoa. I am not going to take you through the use of couverture chocolate and the necessary tempering process. It is fun but for your first Sachertorte this will do fine. Set the cake on a cooling rack - with parchment paper completely covering the area under the cooling rack - very important.

In the double boiler, over a simmer, melt the chocolate. Stir with a spatula constantly till completely melted. Now slowly add the 4 oz. of heavy cream and continue to stir till completely blended. (At this point you can add the glycerin and it will add to the smooth pour texture and sheen.) The adding of the cream at this point reduces the temperature of the chocolate, which does a dirty temper.

OK, now the tricky part. You keep stirring and checking the consistency. Chocolate will lock up if you over heat it; it will crystallize and become stiff and then there is not much you can do with it. You are going to be pouring the icing all over the cake - you want the consistency to be soft enough so that when you pour, you evenly cover the top and it spills over the sides covering them too. The moment all of the cream is mixed into the chocolate should be the time to pour. If you need to smooth, use the spatula - but the cake is beautiful if it is cast in one continuous smooth pour.

Let the cake harden for two hours and you are ready.

When we arrived in Berlin, it was December and a dreary cold grayness covered the city. I was jet-lagged and the dampness crept into my bones. I couldn't get warm. On our first Sunday in the city a couple of art students from the HDK (Berlin Art College) invited us to take a walk. They spoke English, and some company would be good.

We walked around one of the city's many parks and they gave us some pointers on taking the U-Bahn, when banks were closed, which Saturdays stores remained open - all useful info. As we walked I noticed that more and more people kept appearing. They were all ages, shapes and styles. I was informed that the Sunday walk was a tradition in Berlin - EVERYONE, went for a walk. Short walk or long, warm or cold, it was a tradition that cut across all boundaries.

At 2 pm the casual un-directional walking became focused. People seemed to head in specific directions and their steps had purpose. We were told by our paint-stained, torn-jean, green-haired art students that on every Sunday between 2 and 4 pm all of the bakery shops opened up and as part of your walk you hit the bakeries. Some people picked things up and brought them home but the majority seemed to find warm cafés filled with rosy-cheeked walkers. Coffee and tea was brought to tables in small individual pots, the pastries were so perfect they looked fake. We sat there with our new friends, a pot of tea, some Sachertorte, and the whipped cream (Schlagsahne) was unlike anything called whipped cream I had ever eaten. The café had the warmth and color of a candle flame, people participated uninvited in conversations that were going on at other tables; this was a civilized experience in the best sense.

I would like you to make or buy a Sachertorte. Call some good friends and have them all take a Sunday walk that ends about 3 o'clock and then have them all come to your house.

Have the table set with intention: brew the tea and the coffee and have carafes on the table. Before you take the sacrament of Sachertorte, invite people to talk about friends who have not been afraid to lead full lives. People who seemed to be missing the gene that many of us have that says, "You can't do that" or says, "What are you going to do to make a living?" Talk about people who naturally understood that life is for the living and not the fearing.

Now break into the Torte. Have some whipped cream in a bowl to accompany it.

When you are done, play Tom Waits reading Bukowski's Nirvana and then read it yourself, invite others to read it.

And think about that café as the bus pulls away.

-Cork M

Read MFA #3: Guy Clark, Beets, Mark Rothko

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