Slave
continues to honor the great leaders of LGBT thought out history with
this very easy to bake delight.
You
don't need a mixer even if it is a “from Scratch” cake. Slave is
taking this to a pot luck luncheon tomorrow at SAGE Metro.
SAGE
Metro St. Louis enhances the quality of life of LGBT older adults
through service, advocacy, and community awareness.
There
will be a special presentation from my friends at St.
Louis LGBT History Project! A perfect place for this honor of Del
Martin and Phyllis Lyons.
Ingredients:
serves 12
1
stick (½ cup) unsalted butter
1
cup sugar
½
cup brown sugar
2
cups flour + for dusting cranberries
1½
teaspoons baking powder
½
teaspoon kosher salt
1
cup milk
1
tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2
(15 ounce) cans sliced pears in juice
1
cup dried cranberries
1
teaspoon ground cinnamon
½
teaspoon ground nutmeg
Directions:
Preheat
over to 350°F (NOTE
since slave is using a dark pan oven is set at 325).
Butter a 9x13 baking dish (or 2-8x8 baking dishes). Set aside.
Drain
the pears well but reserve 1½ cups of the juice.
Place
butter in a medium size microwave safe mixing bowl. Heat butter in
10sec. intervals in microwave until melted. You DONT want it hot –
just melted. Pour into a large mixing bowl.
Add
1 cup sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and stir to combine. Add milk
and vanilla, whisk until combined. (you do not need to beat this in a
mixer, lumps are just fine!)
Stir
in cranberries that have been dusted with flour. This help keep them
from drifting to the bottom of the cake.
Pour
batter into prepared baking dish.
With
a table knife cut the pear halves into thirds or if small into
halves. Then arrange them evenly over the top of the batter.
Mix
the ½ cup of brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg into the reserved 1½
cups of reserved juice from the can. Whisk to combine and drizzle
over the pears.
Bake
55-60 minutes until golden brown. Or simply test with a
toothpick inserted in the center. If it comes out clean, the cake is
done!
Wish
you could smell this great aroma of the cinnamon and nutmeg that
permeates the kitchen right now!
This
cake was created as a tribute to a pair of great leaders of our LGBT
history:
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon
Let
me tell you about a pair of women who together led and gave direction
to the first womens power group. In doing so they changed the very
roles that women were allowed to play in our society!
Women
getting an education in the 30's and 40's were told that they had few
chooses: they could teach or they could be secretaries. About the
only other option open to them was to be writers. However so few
were successful in that it was best to accept their role as
housewives and mothers. As a woman, you could be a mother or a
spinster. While a few became successful in business, they were NOT
seen in society as role models at all!
Phyllis
Lyon
majored in journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
In 1946, after several years as a reporter in California, she took a
position in Seattle, Washington, as associate editor with Pacific
Builder and Engineer
magazine. (not exactly the Ladies Home Journal) It was here that she
met Del Martin.
Del
Martin
(born: Dorothy
Louise Taliaferro) had
also attended Berkeley, then transferred to San Francisco State
University, she became managing editor of their newspaper. In 1940,
she married a college classmate and two years later gave birth to her
daughter Kendra. After her divorce, (she kept her married name of
Martin – that was the only option you had). Martin worked as a
reporter for Pacific
Builder
in San Francisco before accepting a job in Seattle as editor of Daily
Construction Reports,
the sister publication to Pacific
Builder and Engineer,
in 1949. She and Lyon became close friends and, after three years,
lovers.
When
Lyon returned to San Francisco Martin followed, and on Valentine's
Day 1953 they set up their first home, opened a joint bank account
and established themselves as a couple.
This
was a time when the network would not allow the TV show “I Love
Lucy” to use the word “pregnant” on the air!
Both
Del and Phyllis felt too shy to approach other women in the few
lesbian bars in San Francisco. They had a very difficult time finding
other lesbians to socialize with! The two got invited to a secret
meeting of lesbian social club in September of 1955.
"They
found us," Martin remembers. "We didn't get involved to
fight for any causes. We just wanted to meet lesbians" After
that group split up over differing political ideas, Lyon and Martin
built a new group in 1956, called the Daughters of Bilitis. This was
the first “homophile” group for women. It would be under Martin's
leadership as president with Lyon as secretary. They started a
newsletter: The Ladder, the first ongoing lesbian publication!
Within five years of its origin, the Daughters of Bilitis had
chapters around the country, including Chicago, New York, New
Orleans, San Diego, Los Angeles, Detroit, Denver, Cleveland and
Philadelphia. There were officially only 500 subscribers to The
Ladder but far more readers, as copies were circulated among
women who did not want to put their names on a subscription list.
Education
and exploration were the key components of their programs.
Both
women have been outspoken advocates for lesbian issues, as well as
savvy activists.
In
1964, they were among the founders of the Council on Religion and the
Homosexual, a groundbreaking San Francisco coalition of clergy and
homophile activists.
They
helped launch Citizens Alert, an organization of civil rights and
minority groups dealing with police brutality in 1965.
In
1968, they became the first lesbians to join the National
Organization for Women as a couple and became active leaders.
In
San Francisco, they worked to create the Alice B. Toklas Memorial
Democratic Club in 1972.
Del
Martin served on the city's Commission on the Status of Women for
three years and was president from 1976–1977.
Phyllis
Lyon was on the Human Rights Commission for almost twelve years, and
chaired it from 1982–1983.
From
the mid-1960s on, Lyon was actively involved in human sexuality
education.
Del
Martin published Battered
Wives
in 1976, one of the first books about violence against women.
She became a spokesperson urging the establishment of battered
women's shelters and leading family violence prevention movements.
Martin
and Lyon had also became increasingly active in local and national
Democratic Party electoral campaigns and continue to urge women's
participation in the world of politics.
To
celebrate their fiftieth anniversary in 2003, the couple were honored
in San Francisco at the premiere of the film No
Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.
On
February 12, 2004, Martin and Lyon were issued a marriage license by
the City and County of San Francisco.
The
license, along with those of several thousand other same-sex couples,
were voided by the California Supreme Court just six months later.
However,
they were married again on June 16, 2008, after California finally
achieved marriage equality!
Martin
died just a few months latter, on August 27, 2008, in San Francisco
from complications of an arm bone fracture. She was 87 years old. Her
legal wife, Phyllis, was at her side. San Francisco mayor Gavin
Newsom ordered that the flags at City Hall be flown at half-staff in
her honor!
socialslave
To
satisfy and restore.
To
nourish, support and maintain.
To
gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to
nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I
cook!
Please
buy slave's cookbook:
The
Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM
via @amazon
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