Thom invited me to go with him the day of the dinner to help him prepare the pudding. David would be away and he wanted some company. I agreed and then he told me I had to go early in the morning. When I asked why, he said that he had to steam the pudding for over six hours. I was incredulous. How could it take so long. �That�s what the recipe says. It�s a really dense mass and you have to steam it to keep it moist.�

The Friday before the dinner, we had a drunken rave up. I don�t remember anything about the party, probably because I drank to excess, but there had to be one because I recall having a hang-over when I went with Thom the next morning to start preparing the pudding. Though it started out a bit rough, it turned out to be quite a pleasant day. It was the first of a number of occasions in I acted like a kind of apprentice while Thom taught me how to cook.

On our way to David�s house, Thom said we had to stop off at the liquor store. He said he had to buy a bottle of stout. �What for?� I asked. �You mix it in before steaming the pudding.� I had never had stout before, but I seem to remember having read about it in a story in James Joyce�s The Dubliners. The name conjured up for me men sitting in a smoky room, before a fire on a cold, rainy autumn evening talking about politics.

When we got to the house, David was stuffing the turkey. He was going out for the day, and told us to put it in later in the afternoon. We set about getting the pudding ready.

In addition to the stout, Thom�s Larousse Gastronomique said to moisten the pudding with four eggs. He stirred this dark, heady-smelling good around and then tipped it out into a round bowl. In England, he said, they have special pudding basins with tight fitting lids. Thom improvised a cover using a saucepan lid which he sealed tight by wrapping a tea towel around its perimeter. He then immersed the basin in a big covered pot partially filled with boiling water.

We sat down and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking the rest of the stout, listening to music and discussing everything under the sun. Every so often, Thom would go over, check the pudding and add a little more water to the pot. Later we put on the turkey and the smell of roasting fowl started to waft through the house. It was a cold November afternoon, and the moisture from the pudding steamed up the window and made us feel all warm and cozy.

Eventually, people started to arrive-Cynthia, Mark, Michael, Linda, Liz and he boyfriend, recently returned from France, John. They started preparing various dishes-sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cranberry relish, salads and such. The wine started flowing, people started to listen to their favorite music.

One of the pieces we listened to was Mahler�s Das Lied von der Erde, (�Song of the Earth�) These originally were a collection of songs that Mahler wrote to six Chinese poems. He eventually saw a commonality of theme and wrote orchestral interludes to integrate them into a grand symphonic song cycle. Some of the orchestral work reminds me a bit of Mahler�s first symphony and Songs of a Wayfarer. And writers have noted that these pieces, coming at the end of Mahler�s life, are a perfect melding of his skills of a composer of both symphonic and vocal music.

The poems also reflect Mahler�s fascination with death, which comes through in the titles of four of the six songs: �The Drinking Song of Earth�s Sorrow,� �The Solitary in Autumn,� �The Drunkard in Spring,� and �The Farewell.� He does include happier sounding songs, �Of Youth� and �Of Beauty.� �Of Beauty� paints a vivid picture of young girls picking flowers by the water�s edge. It has a haunting feeling to it. �Of Youth� is more upbeat and has this memorable line: �Friends, handsomely clad, drink and chatter.�

The last song, �Der Abschied� (The Farewell), narrates the poets saying good bye to this life and friends and making ready to die. The music varies from very sparse single instrument-harp, celste, mandolin-accompanying the solo contralto voice, to lush, post-impressionistic swells full of Germanic Romanticism. It would be a bit over the top, were it not for the serene ending, which accompanies the words that depict the cyclic nature of life:

My heart is serene and awaits its final hour.
The well-loved earth everywhere
Blooms in spring and grows green anew.
Everywhere and always the horizon glimmers in blue,
By the time we ate, everyone was in a pretty mellow mood. Near the end of the meal, Thom and I went to the kitchen to turn out the pudding and make the hard sauce. For this he combined butter, sugar and rum, which he whipped together. He heated a bit of whiskey, carried the pudding to the dining room, poured the whiskey over the dessert, and I lit it on fire. Eerie blue flames leapt about in the darkened room and everyone clapped as he set it on the table. Each mouthful exploded in a holographic picture of the entirety of British culture. Yes, a good time was had by all and every plum pudding and Christmas fruitcake reminds me of that wonderful ritual that Thom recreated for us that day.

Mahler Bio

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