Cooking with the Presidents: Chicken Pudding

When I saw that Mount Vernon had posted a Facebook video for something called "Chicken Pudding," my first thought was, "Ewww." But I gave the video a chance, and it quickly became apparent that chicken pudding isn't too much different from, say, a chicken pot pie or something along those lines.

Here, you can see for yourself. (I also give the recipe below if you don't want to watch the video.)

The main difference between this and the pot pie I've made in the past (besides the lack of crust or vegetables) is the addition of eggs...which is also what makes it a pudding, I suppose. I'm always in favor of extra protein, though, so I decided to make this for Presidents Day.

The video tells you pretty much all you need to know, except for the amount of broth. In the comments to the video, Mount Vernon specified about 1/2 cup. I decided to add a little dried thyme to the mixture, also, because it seemed like it needed something. And instead of roasting my own chicken on a spit, I picked up a rotisserie chicken at Ye Olde Jewel Osco, and I shredded it instead of cubing it.

Here's the recipe I wound up using:

Chicken Pudding

1 cooked chicken, shredded or cubed
1/2 c butter
1/2 c flour
1/2 c broth
2 c milk
4 eggs
salt, pepper, thyme to taste

Preheat your oven to 350

In a bowl, mix together the eggs and milk, and set aside.

Melt the butter in a large pan, then whisk in the flour. Cook for a couple minutes until it darkens a bit.

Whisk in the broth and incorporate it well.

Slowly add the milk/egg mixture and whisk well to combine. Add seasoning.

Remove from heat, add the chicken, then transfer to a pie plate. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

***

While I was making this, my daughter came into the kitchen to ask what smelled so good. I told her I was making a chicken pie because somehow that sounds more appealing than chicken pudding. She said she couldn't wait for dinner. I was glad she was enthusiastic because my last attempt at a Mount Vernon recipe hadn't gone too well.

The pudding emerged from the oven looking and smelling pretty appealing. I let it cool for about 20 minutes before cutting into it, since that's what I usually do with casseroles and whatnot to keep them from running. I'm not sure that was entirely necessary with this, though. It wound up being firm and not runny at all, probably thanks to all those eggs.

I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to scoop out the servings or slice them like a pie. I wound up doing a scoop-slice hybrid.

I served the pudding with biscuits and honey-glazed carrots. In retrospect I would have gone with a lighter, less sweet vegetable because the pudding was pretty dense, and the biscuits and honey just made everything heavier. It also looked kind of monochrome. Not to go all Iron Chef, but it needed something acidic.

That said, the pudding actually tasted pretty good, and my kids seemed to enjoy it a lot. In fact, they liked it so much that halfway through the meal I decided to tell them it was really called Chicken Pudding...and then they suddenly stopped eating. After moaning for a couple minutes about how gross that was, they resumed eating again, and they ate the leftovers the next night without complaint. (Surprisingly, the leftovers actually tasted a little better than the fresh-baked pudding/pie.)

This isn't a fancy dish, but it's a hearty one, and it's worth checking out if you want to make something George Washington might have eaten. (And trust me, there are a lot of things he would have eaten that sound---and probably taste---a lot less appealing than "chicken pudding.")

Cooking with the Presidents: Mount Vernon Pumpkin Pie

A couple weeks ago, the Mount Vernon Facebook page posted a tutorial for making 18th Century Pumpkin Pie:



What intrigued me right away was the use of rosewater. Rosewater was a common flavoring before vanilla became a thing, and you might remember it from such posts as Dolley Madison Cake and Shaker Apple Pie. Now, I'll admit I was a bit skeptical. I don't even put vanilla in pumpkin pie, so putting rosewater in it seemed especially unusual. But it's probably historically accurate, and I'm always up for a presidential baking challenge, so game on!

Besides rosewater, the other unusual thing about this pie is the lack of eggs. You might notice a bowl of eggs sitting there, as did several people who commented on Facebook that the Mount Vernon cook forgot to add them. But apparently the eggs are for the crust (go figure) not the pie, and apparently the pie sets up just fine without them.

Now, this recipe calls for the use of an actual pumpkin. Mr. Presidentressor asked why I didn't just use one of the many cans of pumpkin puree we stockpiled last fall when the country was supposedly on the verge of a pumpkin shortage that never materialized, but I explained that I needed to be as authentic as possible in making this recipe.

And then I got historically inauthentic. This recipe wants you to cut, peel, and chunk the pumpkin, and then boil it. Peeling a raw pumpkin seems like a great way to lose a finger, so I decided to use my Instant Pot instead. Sorry, but it was way easier and quicker. I added a cup of water to the pot, put in the trivet, set the pumpkin in whole (sideways---the stem made it too tall otherwise), and cooked it on Manual for 10 minutes. When it was done, I let it sit for about 20 minutes, then took it out and easily sliced it open with a knife. The seeds practically fell out in one clump, and I was able to peel the pulp away from the skin with just my fingers and a spoon. Then I used my immersion blender to puree the pumpkin.

But look, the end result was the same, so I'm not going to apologize.

Per the recipe, I added to the pumpkin puree 1 tbsp of rosewater. Then I needed to add the spices "to taste." I decided upon 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp each of ginger and nutmeg. I skipped the mace because I don't have any (and if I'm being honest, I've never understood the difference between nutmeg and mace anyway). I was tempted to add some cloves because it felt like I should, but I also didn't want to deviate too much from the recipe, so no cloves.

Then I mixed in 1/4 cup of molasses, then a pint of heavy cream, which seemed like a lot, but I trust the Mount Vernon people.

Then I poured it all into my crust. (A word on the crust: I did not make the crust that accompanies this pie on the Mount Vernon Facebook page. Making pie crust is already my most despised culinary task---despite my undying love of pie---and theirs seemed like too much work, even though it probably wasn't. The fact that I made crust at all is an accomplishment.)

Thanks to the molasses, at this point it looked and smelled more like a gingerbread pie than a pumpkin pie, but I'm not sure that's anything to complain about.

Into the 350-degree oven it went for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes, it still looked very jiggly, so I gave it another 15. After that it still looked pretty jiggly, but reasonably so, so I took it out and let it cool at room temperature for a couple hours, then in the fridge for a couple more.

I was impressed that the pie did set up, although it was very soft.

Mr. Presidentressor and I wound up being the only ones to eat the pie. (The kids opted for cupcakes instead. Sometimes their intuition is good.)

This pie is...different. The molasses was pretty overpowering, so it didn't even really taste like gingerbread---just molasses. There was absolutely no pumpkin flavor whatsoever, and also no rosewater flavor, which is probably for the best. It was also, as I mentioned, very soft and mushy, and sort of grainy. Whipped cream helped, and I'll admit that it sort of grew on me as I continued eating.

Even so, I probably won't make this again unless I need to bring a George Washington-themed dish to a party, but it was worth a try. I can definitely see how this would have been a big hit back in the 18th century, but today I'd probably take a cupcake instead. On the plus side, my crust was excellent!

DIY Presidential Rings

A few months ago, as the Fourth of July approached, I realized I didn't have anything specifically presidential with which to accessorize my holiday outfit. Then I remembered some presidential spoons a friend had sent me a while back, and I realized I could turn one of those into a bracelet.

I scoured the web and YouTube for tutorials on making a bracelet out of a spoon, and somehow I decided it would be better to turn the spoon into a ring. I don't remember how or why I came to that conclusion, but I'm not sure that matters.

This is a mandrel

The problem with this plan was that I really needed a ring mandrel, something I hadn't even heard of until I started researching this whole thing. Luckily they sell them at Michael's, and with a 50% off coupon I got my mandrel for only $10. Turns out you can also get them for around the same price on Amazon. Make sure you get one that's all metal! There are some that are plastic, which is fine for making wire rings or whatever, but if you're going to be hammering this thing, it needs to be solid metal.

You'll also need a presidential spoon, of course. The spoon collection my friend sent included George Washington, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, William Henry Harrison, James K. Polk, and Calvin Coolidge. Since this was for the Fourth of July I decided to go with Washington (plus I had a backup Washington spoon in case I destroyed the first one).

Besides the mandrel and spoon, the other tools you'll need are a rubber mallet (or something similar), a block of wood (or something similar---this is for you to set the ring and mandrel on when you pound away at them), a hacksaw or something else that will cut through metal, and a metal file. Thankfully Mr. Presidentressor had all those items. Well, actually, he didn't have a rubber mallet, so I wrapped two thicknesses of washcloth around a regular hammer for my first attempt, but I got a mallet for the second one. I recommend the mallet (more on this later).

I didn't take photos while I made the ring because for some reason I didn't think I'd blog about it, but then the ring came out so well I realized I had to. As it turned out, the only other person in my life who was actually excited about my Washington ring was my cousin Christina, who demanded one for her birthday. She chose Andrew Jackson because she hates him and wanted to be ironic. I just recently made hers, and I was smart enough to photograph the process this time. (Also, her birthday isn't until December so she's probably going to see this in advance and it'll ruin the "surprise." Sorry, Chris.)

So, how to make one of these rings? First thing is to measure how much spoon you'll need. I wrapped a thin strip of paper around my finger, cut it to the right length, then I used that to mark the back of the spoon in Sharpie.

Bent spoon. I wound up
bending it even more
before we cut it.

(Come to think of it, the very first thing you should do is check eBay to make sure the spoon you're cutting and bending isn't worth, like, $900. I didn't check until after my ring was finished, but the first auction I found for the George Washington spoon was $3.95, so it's all good.)

At least one of the tutorials I found said to pre-bend the spoon into a loose ring before cutting it, since the extra length of the spoon would allow for more leverage. I did that, and while it's true that the spoon is easier to shape that way, it also made it harder to cut with the hacksaw later. For the Jackson spoon, I left it straight for cutting, but then it was really, really hard to bend it without that extra leverage. When I make another ring (and yes, there will be a next time), I'm going back to bending it first, and we'll just have to struggle a bit to cut it.

Cutting Andrew Jackson

Once your spoon is cut, the edges will probably be a bit sharp. Use a metal file to smooth those down.

Okay, so when your spoon is cut and filed, it's time to start using the mandrel and mallet/hammer to bang the ring into shape. The idea is to put the spoon on the mandrel and use the mallet to bend the spoon around the mold. Don't worry too much about properly sizing the ring right away. Start big and work your way smaller. You can fine-tune it once you're further along. Remember to set the mandrel on a wooden block while you hammer. I covered the block with an old washcloth to help protect the spoon and to keep the block from chipping.

Some tutorials showed using a vice to hold the ring onto the mandrel to keep it in place while hammering. That would probably help a lot, but when I made the Washington spoon, Mr. Presidentressor was in the middle of some other stuff and I didn't want to bother him for a vice. For the Jackson one, I just forgot, plus I'm not sure that would have worked with these spoons anyway. So what I did was set the mandrel down on the block of wood with the spoon in the middle. I held one side of the mandrel down with my right foot and the other with my left hand, then used my right hand to beat the crap out of the spoon. This was...maybe not the smartest setup, but it worked.

A few words of caution: Be really careful when you're banging away at the spoon, especially if you have body parts nearby. It hurts to whack yourself with a mallet. What hurts even more is when you hit yourself and skin your hand with a mallet. Don't be me.

The shaping process was fairly quick and easy with the Washington spoon. The Jackson one took some more effort because I hadn't pre-bent it before cutting. For that one, Mr. Presidentressor wound up clamping the mandrel to our block of wood, with the spoon between the mandrel and the block. He then used some pliers to bend the spoon up enough that I could start hammering away at it.

(At this point, could I have left it clamped and continued to hammer the ring that way rather than holding everything with my foot and hand? Probably, yes, but it didn't occur to me. Also, it's important to rotate the ring to hit it from different angles, and it needs to be moved up the mandrel as it gets smaller, which would have involved a lot of unclamping/reclamping, so I'm sticking by my rudimentary process.)

It's also important to note that (at least with my spoons) the part with the presidents' heads just would not bend. That wound up not being a problem, though, because it looked fine---possibly better---on my finger with that part lying flat.

One other minor snag was that at some point while making the first ring, the washcloth I'd wrapped around the hammer tore, but I didn't realize it. As a result, there's some scratching on the spoon to the left of Washington's head. His face is intact, though, so all is well. I didn't run into any issues with the rubber mallet and Andrew Jackson. For this reason, I strongly recommend a mallet.

My spoons started out quite tarnished, but by the time I was done, they were sparkling. Don't waste time and effort on silver polishes before you start. It'll probably work itself out.

All in all, I'm very happy with the way the rings came out.

Jackson looks like Buchanan here, doesn't he?

There was something cathartic about whacking away at Andrew Jackson's head. Also, before I made the Washington one Mr. Presidentressor and I had been out at breakfast. When we were done I said, "Okay, I need to get home so I can bang George Washington." Crafts are always better with innuendo.

Now, if anyone has any ideas on what to do with the other end of the spoons, let me know. The Jackson one has a scene of the Battle of New Orleans, and I can't just throw it away.

Cooking with the Presidents: Washington/Lafayette Gingerbread

A few weeks ago I brought you a recipe for Dolley Madison's gingerbread. That bread was moist and aromatic, but not very gingery and kind of bland. I mentioned that I had two other presidential gingerbread recipes to try, so today I present the second one: a Washington/Lafayette delicacy. (Also, I'm realizing that I forgot what the third recipe is, so I'll need to look into that.)

My copy of The Presidents' Cookbook calls this "Martha Washington Gingerbread," which doesn't make sense because the accompanying story describes how George Washington's mom, Mary, made this for the Marquis de Lafayette when he visited her in 1784. I'm going to assume the title is a typo because it doesn't seem that Martha had anything to do with this one. (To confirm that this really is Mary's recipe we're dealing with, I found that Mount Vernon has a recipe for "Lafayette Gingerbread" that includes the orange zest Mary Washington used for Lafayette's treat.)

Anyway, the story in my cookbook says, "Legend has it that [Lafayette] was so impressed with the gingerbread and with Washington's mother in general that he explained, 'I have seen the only Roman matron of my day.' Some historians assume this was a compliment. From the rest of his comments we rather doubt it."

Then that's it. What!? What were the rest of his comments? What did he say about George Washington's mom? "I have seen the only Roman matron of my day. I came, I saw, I threw up in my mouth a little, am I right, guys?" I'll have to look it up.

The "recipe" included in my book says to take a gingerbread mix, but to add a teaspoon of instant coffee, a teaspoon of grated orange rind, and to use 1/2 c of orange juice in place of 1/2 c of water the mix will inevitably call for.

Sorry, but the same cookbook that expects me to butcher my own turtle wants me to use a boxed gingerbread mix? I don't think Mary Washington walked down to her local Ye Olde Grocery Store for a box of gingerbread mix, and she probably wasn't using Nescafé, either.

But the idea of using orange in gingerbread isn't new to me. For my daughter's second birthday she insisted on a "jujubed" cake (that's "gingerbread" for those of you not fluent in toddler) and at the time I had just gotten a fantastic book of bread machine recipes that included one for orange gingerbread. I made that recipe (in the oven, not the bread machine) and it was very good.

I decided to adapt that recipe rather than insult the memory of Lafayette and the Washingtons with a box of Betty Crocker. (In case anyone wants to know why I didn't just make the Mount Vernon recipe, it's because I didn't find it until my gingerbread was already in the oven. Also because their recipe is just an adaptation of someone else's anyway, since Mary's actual recipe seems to not exist.)

Without further ado, here is my recipe for
Washington/Lafayette Gingerbread

dry ingredients:
2 1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp instant coffee
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp salt

wet ingredients:
4 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 c molasses
2 large eggs
1/2 c light brown sugar
1/2 c buttermilk
1/4 c orange juice
2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1/4 c hot water
1 1/2 tsp orange zest

A couple notes here. The "recipe" from my Presidents' Cookbook said to use 1 tsp each of coffee and orange zest. I wound up with about 1 1/2 tsp of zest, so I used all of it, and I decided to increase the coffee by the same amount. Frankly, it seemed like a really small amount of coffee, even when

Waiting to be baked

increased, but I went with it. I should note that the Mount Vernon recipe doesn't say anything about coffee, so go figure.

To make the bread:

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease your pan. (I used a 9 x 9 glass baking dish.)

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl, then fold in the dry mixture. When combined, pour it into your cooking vessel and bake for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

My copy of The Presidents' Cookbook says to serve the bread with applesauce or whipped cream. I opted for whipped cream because when given the choice between whipped cream and applesauce, who's going to pick applesauce? Mount Vernon's recipe suggests serving it with "fairy butter," which sounded delightful until I read that recipe: Basically you mix butter with sugar and orange-flower water (okay) and four hard-boiled egg yolks. I'll stick with the whipped cream.

So how did the Washington/Lafayette gingerbread taste? Amazing! My husband, kids, and I all gave it two thumbs up, and it's rare that we're all in agreement about a dessert. I gave some to our neighbors, and they texted me "Nailed it." (They had remained mum about the Dolley Madison gingerbread.) The bread is gingery and orangey...although I couldn't discern any coffee flavor at all, which wasn't a surprise. I think it would make more sense to either add more coffee or eliminate it all together. Since the Mount Vernon recipe doesn't include coffee, I'm inclined to simply remove it. I might play with it more in the future.

Yum!

If you try it for yourself, let me know what you think in the comments here or on my Facebook page.

Abraham Lincoln Meets Teddy Roosevelt

During the school year, my 7-year-old daughter's favorite pastime was writing and illustrating stories. Sadly, she hadn't written a single thing this summer, so the other night I asked her to make me a book. The next morning, she presented me with a gift: an original story entitled "Aborham Lincon Meets Teddy Roseavelt." [sic]

In the story, Abraham Lincoln is illustrated as a ham, and Teddy Roosevelt is illustrated as a teddy bear. One would think her inspiration for the ham came from the series of paintings of presidents holding hams, but no! It was purely coincidental. In fact, she surprised me with the book mere seconds after I discovered the president/ham artwork. I consider it fate.

I thought the world would like to read her story, so I've transcribed it here. I've fixed spelling and added quotation marks and some other punctuation, but everything else (including the illustrations) is original.

***

Abraham Lincoln Meets Teddy Roosevelt

"Oh! Hi! I am Abraham Lincoln. What is your name?"
"Oh! Abraham! I found you a new friend," said George Washington.

"What!? A new friend? Cool!"

"Hi! I am Teddy Roosevelt! Are you Abracon Lincoln or something?"
"No, I am Abraham Lincoln!"
"Oh! Well hi!"

"So what do you want to do?" asked Teddy.
"What about catch?" said Albert. Albert was a very annoying bird. Never mind about him.

"Do you want to pretend we are hamsters?"
"Oh, do they sell ham there?"
"No, silly," said Abraham Lincoln.

"Get ham"

"Ya! Let's play that!"
"My name will be Ham and yours will be Teddy! Ok?"
"Sure!"

"Squeak squeak." "Oh."

Then the friends went to George's house for dinner. They first had chicken instead of ham, and pie for dessert. After dinner they went out to play catch. At last it was time to go home. They had so much fun together.

The End

***

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect the chicken they ate was Albert, the annoying bird. What do you think?

NYC History Tour, Part 1: Hamilton/Revolution

Presidentress has been quiet lately, mainly because I've just been busy with stuff and partly because I've been unmotivated. I have a whole list of ideas for presidential blog posts, and I'm in the middle of reading a book I plan to review, but I've fallen into a sort of presidential malaise, which Jimmy Carter would appreciate.

Well, what better way to get amped up again than a whirlwind presidential trip to New York City?

The trip wasn't exactly planned as a presidential thing. Instead it was planned a girls' getaway weekend with my BFF from high school. Our only set-in-stone activities were a Broadway show and a tour at the Tenement Museum (I highly recommend). But then I got in touch with a family friend, a native New Yorker who knows everything about the city and who offered to customize a tour for us. Not all of it was presidential or even tangentially presidential---there was some music, literature, baseball, and Robber Barons thrown in---but it was more than enough for a blog post.

It also involved 21 miles of walking over the course of two days, so we covered a lot of ground.

First up: Hamilton!

No, that's not the Broadway show we saw. Neither of us wanted to mortgage our houses to pay for tickets. But we did the next-best things. (And let's not nitpick over the fact that he wasn't technically a president.)

First we went to Alexander Hamilton's grave at Trinity Church. Angelica, Eliza, and Phillip are there, too. (So is Robert Fulton of steamboat fame.) My New Yorker friend said before the Broadway musical hardly anyone visited that cemetery, but now the place is crazy busy. At least three giant tour groups plus dozens of stragglers swarmed through in the half hour we were there.

Just a couple blocks away is Federal Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated as the first president. It also served as the capitol building during the short time the government was based in New York.

The building that stands today was actually constructed in the 1840s after the original was razed in 1812, but it contains a piece of the ground on which Washington stood, the railing he stood behind, and the Bible he used when being sworn into office.

George Washington was Here

I'm not actually touching it

Just a couple blocks from Federal Hall is Fraunces Tavern, which was an important hangout before and during the Revolution (some scenes from the Hamilton musical are set there). Prior to the

Revolution, the Sons of Liberty met at the tavern, and they even staged a pre-Boston-Tea-Party tea party when they forced a British naval captain to apologize for bringing tea into New York. The tavern served as one of Washington's headquarters during the war, and it's where he gave his farewell speech to his officers once the war was over. It also served briefly as a government building before the offices moved to Federal Hall and the tavern turned into a tavern again.

A museum on the second and third floors contains relics and information about the role the tavern played before, during, and after the Revolution. (No photos allowed.) The tavern still serves as a restaurant---and a nice-looking one at that---but we didn't eat there because we had other plans.

On our way to lunch we passed by the Wall Street bull. Remember how I wrote about people rubbing Abraham Lincoln's nose for good luck? Apparently people do the same thing with the bull's balls. (I just missed getting a photo of a woman licking them.)

Stay classy, America.

But back to Hamilton. On the second day of our trip, we took a train to the Hamilton Grange National

Memorial, the house where "the Hamiltons move[d] uptown." Honestly, until I started planning this trip I had no idea that Alexander Hamilton's house still existed, nor had I actually given it any thought. I imagine this place has also enjoyed a tremendous boost from the popularity of the musical.

The house has been moved (twice) a short distance from its original location, but it's in the same general area and even today it has more of a pastoral feel than downtown Manhattan. I mean, it's clearly a city, but it's definitely "quiet uptown" and was probably even more so back then. You can see why it would appeal to someone trying to escape the bustle.

The lower level of the house is a small museum dedicated to Hamilton. The upstairs has a few rooms decorated in period furnishings. It's not a grand house or an extensive museum---we were done within half an hour, probably---but it's worth a a trip to see it.

A short cab ride took us to the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the yang to Hamilton's yin. This house was

built in 1765, but the owner was forced to abandon it during the Revolution. The house served asWashington's headquarters for a while, then it later served as British headquarters before eventually being taken over by the new U.S. government. In 1810 a guy named Stephen Jumel purchased it. His wife, Eliza, wound up becoming rich by dealing in real estate, which was almost unheard of back then.

When Stephen died, Eliza married...wait for it...Aaron Burr! When they got married Eliza's property automatically transferred to Burr's ownership and he didn't waste much time before starting to sell off her belongings because that's the kind of guy he was.

So in this one house, we have George Washington's war room just a few steps from Aaron Burr's bedroom. History is so incestuous.

Washington's war room

Burr's bedroom: He's reliable with the ladies

Hidden Mickeys!

We took a self-guided tour of this house like we had with Hamilton's. When we got there, one of the docents rushed us into the octagonal living room to take a quick look before it was closed off for a yoga class. My BFF and I agreed that it would be pretty damn cool to take a yoga class in Aaron Burr's house, but we weren't dressed for it and our bodies hurt from all the walking. I wanted to go back later in the evening for their paranormal event (my New Yorker friend says that the house is considered quite haunted), but it didn't fit in with our plans.

Just across the street from Burr's house is the stairway that used to lead from Coogan's Bluff down to
the Polo Grounds where the New York Giants played before moving to San Francisco. Besides the staircase, there's really nothing left of the Polo Grounds. We walked over a bridge to the site of the new (and the few remains of the old) Yankee Stadium. It was a long bridge, but I had no idea Yankee Stadium was so close to the Polo Grounds. (I could find ways to connect this to presidents, but that will probably have to wait until I begin my "Presidents and Baseball" series, which should be coming...someday.)

Stay tuned for my next post, which is dedicated to random presidents and other such people.

Also, if you haven't already bought it, make sure you get your copy of the "Hamiltome," the book about the musical. It has all the annotated lyrics plus tons of background info. Available at Amazon!

How Ronald Reagan Destroyed My First Celebrity Crush

There's a movie called FDR: American Badass. It stars Barry Bostwick (remember that name) as Franklin Roosevelt, who contracts polio from a werewolf bite, then has to go to war (personally) to fight the werewolves running the Axis countries. I had planned on writing a review of it--and I probably still will--but while I was gathering my thoughts, I realized I had another, more important story to tell. It's tangentially related to FDR: American Badass, but mostly it's a strange and somewhat embarrassing story from my childhood, encompassing celebrity crushes, questionable parenting, and two other presidents.

Let me set the scene: The year was 1984. Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire. O. J. Simpson starred in a Hertz commercial. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters, of course. A more elusive question: Where's the beef?

In the spring of 1984 I was six years old, and even back then I loved presidents and American history. Therefore I was overwhelmingly excited when my parents let me stay up late to watch all three nights of a miniseries about George Washington. My parents probably thought, "How cool is our kid? The highlight of her life is that she gets to watch a show about our first president!" They probably felt very smug.

That feeling likely didn't last long, because that miniseries caused me to fall in love, not with George Washington but with the actor who played him: Barry Bostwick. "How weird is our kid?" my parents probably wondered. "Why can't she have a crush on Michael Jackson like everyone else?"

At the time, Barry Bostwick was nearly 40 years old (though he looked younger) and therefore not what one would generally consider a typical teen heartthrob, but something about his portrayal of a young Washington--tall, slender, pony tail flying out behind him as he galloped on his horse--really did it for me.

I suspect I must have talked about Barry Bostwick a lot over the next few days, because I remember my dad growing a little exasperated. One afternoon he and I were running errands and he needed to make a quick stop somewhere. He left me in the car--as parents were known to do back then--but before he shut the door he tossed me a section of the Akron Beacon Journal. "There," he said. "That's what Barry Bostwick really looks like."

I looked down in horror at the photo on the page. Instead of the tall, trim, dashing man from the miniseries, I found a paunchy, ugly, shirtless old man in swimming trunks, walking along a beach. I stared and stared in disbelief. What had happened to Barry Bostwick? How could he have let himself go like that? And so quickly!

My 6-year-old self either couldn't read the caption or didn't know to look for one. My 6-year-old self thought the guy in the photo looked a lot like then-president Ronald Reagan, but my 6-year-old self also knew my dad wouldn't lie to me. I resigned myself to the fact that Barry Bostwick was not as appealing as I had thought.

Heartbroken over truth about my love, I gave up on Barry. I don't think I ever spoke of him again.

In retrospect, I don't know what my dad was thinking. Maybe he was joking with me. Maybe he was being metaphorical--not trying to imply that the photo actually was Barry Bostwick, but that, at least compared to a 6-year-old, he was indeed an old man. Maybe he was employing an untested but apparently effective parenting strategy to help disabuse young children of unattainable childhood crushes.  In any case, I can almost guarantee my father will have no recollection of this even happening, but I'm positive it did.

Out of curiosity and to make this post more complete, I tried to find photos of Ronald Reagan on a beach. (If you ever want to feel really disgusting about yourself, google: Ronald Reagan shirtless beach.) I found some photos--and they looked like the one I remember from that fateful day when my father slammed the door on Barry Bostwick--but I couldn't be sure because I couldn't find dates on them. Then I looked up when the Washington miniseries ran (April 8, 1984) and googled: Ronald Reagan beach April 1984.

Bam!

I don't remember Nancy being in the photo I saw, but maybe she was cropped out, or maybe my brain was too busy processing my disappointment to notice or care about Barry's older female companion.

Soon I moved on to my next celebrity crush: Boy George.