Beard on Beard Recipe One: Angels in America Apricot Toast

“Nothing is lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so.”

-Harper Pitt, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America

“I arrange the toasts on our prettiest pewter platter. I place a sprig of rosemary on either end. I cut two apricots, wholly out of season but hungered for, into rose-gold slices between the toasts, then I cover it all in plastic wrap.”

Me, Beard: A Memoir (forthcoming, Eerdmans)

The night before I decided to end my first marriage, I made apricot toast to bring to a friend’s apartment so we could watch HBO’s premiere of Angels in America. That movie helped change my life, and in this scene from the book, I’m preparing myself to enter several “threshold[s] of revelation” while I prepare this apricot toast.

I first ate this toast at a party close to the Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier in Chicago in 2003. The party guest who brought it told me she found the recipe in Better Homes & Gardens (it’s reprinted here in Sherry Baby’s fabulous blog). I’ve been making permutations ever since. Some versions of this online call it Apricot Bruschetta, and that’s basically what it is: roasted garlic toast with apricot jam, cheese, and nuts. Variations abound.

Ingredients:

• One large bulb of garlic

• Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

• Olive oil

• Two springs fresh rosemary

• Four tablespoons high-fat butter (I use Vermont Creamery, unsalted)

• Zest of two lemons (when chopped with rosemary, divided into two halves)

• 1 standard-size French baguette (I actually only used half)

• 6 oz. Apricot Preserves

• 1 small wheel triple-creme Brie

  Instructions:

  1. First step: roast a bulb of garlic however you like (I slice off both ends, put it in foil, pour olive oil over it, sprinkle kosher salt on both sides, roast at 400 for 45 min to 1 hour).

  2. While garlic cools, stem two sprigs of rosemary and zest two medium lemons.

3. Chop the zest and rosemary together.

4. Add all cloves of garlic and half the rosemary/zest mixture into four tablespoons of softened butter. I like Vermont Creamery butter because it’s what we used to serve at the restaurant where I worked in Boston a million years ago, but any high fat butter will work.

5. Spread the butter on slices of baguette and then broil, toast, or bake until crispy and gold (the temperature and time will depend on what oven you choose—I did these in my air fryer at 400 for about six minutes).

6. While I like to use fresh apricots and make my own jam when possible, there were no fresh apricots available in rural Minnesota in winter, so we went with the tried and true Bonne Maman instead.

7. Add the other half of the rosemary/zest mixture to half a jar of the apricot jam. Microwave for twenty seconds until it’s runny, but not bubbling. I heated mine about 40 seconds.

8. Spoon over toasted baguette slices.

9. Here’s where it gets controversial. In 2003, hot Brie Cheese was the coolest thing there was. I still never get mad at it when I come across it at a party. But I know that’s not a universal feeling. Recently, one of my husband’s students, who’s headed to culinary school in the fall, told him she thinks Brie Cheese tastes like “feet and also nothing,” which I thought was funny, and also I can get where’s she coming from. I have done this recipe with all kinds of cheese: Jarlsberg, Gouda, Gruyère, etc, and I liked all, but to return to my 2003 era, I went for a triple-crème Brie. Place the Brie over the apricot mixture on the toasts and bake until almost melted (I baked it in my air fryer at 400 for four minutes).

10. While the toast bakes, chop whatever nuts you want (I used to candy the nuts with lemon zest and rosemary too, but I was tired and had to grade essays after this, so I used good old pistachios from Aldi).

11. Sprinkle nuts over the toasts. Serve warm or at room temperature and taste a party looking out over Lake Michigan in 2003. :) Enjoy!