A Michael Grant here, a Michael Grant there

I am hearing from people who think I am the Michael Grant who wrote “Gone,” a popular novel published last summer. Actually I am not that Michael Grant, or the Michael Grant who is a deceased English scholar, a New York crime writer, a heavyweight boxer, a 12th-century baron, a character in the “Manhunt” video game, an Arizona television personality, a Washington Redskins cornerback, or a hockey player.

I do pop up third, among 381,000 results, if you Google “Michael Grant.” That is mainly because I have posted a mess of blogs in the last four years, and every blog I write, when it encounters a search spider in the byways and barrooms of the Web, influences that spider to identify with me. I am the Michael Grant whose Google results tagline reads, “Life is infinitely interesting, as long as you are interested in life.” (Hint to the other 380,997 MGs out there: if you want to move up on the list, write a blog.)

I am the Michael Grant who, among other works, wrote “Michael Grant’s Cookbook.”
In the cookbook is the recipe for peach cobbler that I was blogging about recently. I don’t care which other MG you talk to, none of them will know as much about bottom crust as I do, even though it is only theoretical knowledge. I write about it very warmly, in the cookbook, but I never can get it to come out right, which is to say like a dumpling. Jessie, on the other hand, brought over peach cobbler for dinner the other night. She said she made it from my recipe, and it had a terrific, doughy, bottom crust. Can you see the unfairness here? I heated up the last of it for breakfast yesterday morning, poured a little half-and-half over, and it was like I was back at my grandmother’s table again.

I promised the visitors who have made me No. 3 on the Google returns an experiment with peach cobbler that uses high-quality sourdough to achieve the desirable dumplingness on the bottom. I discovered by accident that Dinty Moore Beef Stew poured over inch-thick slices of sourdough in Corningware and then baked at 325 for 30 minutes produces a terrific dumpling effect. It should work with peach cobbler, but I need to try it first. I haven’t yet, because we have all been glued to the bread-and-water news about the economy. My old cookbook was based on recipes my grandmother used to “stretch things” during and after the Great Depression; wading through the present doom and gloom, it occurs to me to revise the book and publish it as “Stimulus Cooking.”

Of course a recipe, even in experimental form, is only a starting place. Lately I have developed a vision of sourdough on the bottom, a mix of syrupy peaches and bing cherries with a dollop of Grand Marnier inside, and on the top, cubed whole wheat artisan bread I get at Trader Joe’s, swirled in butter, and the whole thing baked at 350 for 25 minutes. I would call it Cobbler Jubilee. Then I might become in the public consciousness “the Michael Grant who invented Cobbler Jubilee.” Or maybe not. I swear, however, I am going to try it this weekend, which is supposed to be rainy and cozy.