Nancy Webb MacKay and Ardis Cameron.  Photo courtesy of Ardis Cameron

“Desserts that Quiver”

When Laurie Colwin coined this term in 1993, I had just ceded desserts to my partner, Nancy. We were both working women who loved home cooking, and like many same sex couples, we set about reinventing the highly gendered kitchens we had grown up in. Taste, curiosity and enthusiasm forged our culinary roles, and soon after moving in together, a division of labor happily took root. Nancy, who craved order and a precise mise en place, signed up as drinks maker, dishwasher and pastry chef. My messy habits and creative outbursts nudged me into shopping, prepping and cooking dinner.

Like Colwin, a novelist who often wrote about food, we embraced the “domestic sensualist” within.

Summers ramped up our culinary courage, sending me into hair-raising adventures with clams, lobsters, mussels, crab and pasta. I stoked open fires and learned how to grill, make Thai lime sauce, incorporate rosemary, lavender and foraged herbs, and toss shellfish with spicy pork and buttery spaghetti.

But it was Nancy who always stole the show with her silky desserts that shined in the Maine moonlight and quivered softly. Creamy rice puddings, lilac-scented burnt creams, lemon souffles, and a blueberry something her mother called, “Slump along the Shore.” It was one dish in particular, however, that will forever pierce my heart when I recall those dinners in Stonington: Prosecco and Summer Fruit Terrine, a dish that graced the cover of Gourmet Magazine in the summer of 2002.

On the surface, it’s a fairly simple concoction of ripe fruit, sparkling white wine and gelatin. As with all things molded, however, drama always lurked in the wings.

I would hear the door of the refrigerator close, then a slight yelp would escape from the kitchen. An anxious Nancy stood over a rectangular mold, carefully submerging it into hot water to release the terrine from its grip. “Pour in more hot watah!!” she’d plead, her Downeast accent soft as pudding. Soon our friends were hovering about as Nancy, with a practiced, and dramatic shriek, would flip the pan over so that the colorful loaf – cherries, grapes, peach slices, and blueberries now encased in translucent gelatin – bounced out of the mold and onto a waiting platter where it would quiver to waves of applause. Nancy beamed.

When she died in 2015, the recipe languished; lost somewhere on a shelf in the old farmhouse, until a few weeks ago, when I found it under an old cookery book. This summer, friends and family will make it again. I will pour the hot water and delight in Nancy’s favorite dessert. The one that quivered so gayly.

Prosecco and Summer Fruit Terrine

The recipe originated in the now-defunct Gourmet magazine, in August, 2002.

4 cups mixed summer fruit, such as blueberries, raspberries, blackberries; pealed peach slices and colorful grapes
2 ¾ teaspoons unflavored, unsweetened gelatin
2 cups Prosecco
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Step 1.
Arrange fruit in a 1½-quart glass, ceramic or non-stick terrine loaf pan.

Step 2.
Sprinkle the gelatin over ¼ cup Prosecco in a small bowl and let stand 1 minute to soften.

Bring 1 cup Prosecco to boil with the sugar, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add the gelatin mixture, stirring until dissolved. Stir in remaining ¾ cup Prosecco and lemon juice, then transfer to a metal bowl set in a larger bowl of ice and cold water. Cool mixture, stirring occasionally, just to room temperature.

Step 3.
Slowly pour the mixture over the fruit, then chill, covered, until firm, at least 6 hours.

Step 4.
To unmold, dip pan in larger pan of hot water 3-5 seconds to loosen. Invert a serving plate over terrain and invert terrine onto plate.

Step 5.
Applaud.

THE COOK: ARDIS CAMERON (with Nancy Webb MacKay in spirit)

“I came to cooking rather late in life, when I fell in love with a woman who loved to eat. Simple food, well-prepared, friends at the table, a fire roaring nearby. Our home in South Portland became a gathering spot for many, including my students at University of Southern Maine, where I taught for 27 years and was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, until retiring as Emerita Professor of American and New England Studies.”