Teri's Pumpkin Cake

Before I get to today’s recipe, I’d like to remind readers about my beloved Pudding Hollow Pudding Festival, scheduled for TOMORRROW—Halloween!

Anyone within shouting distance of western Massachusetts should definitely come (and perhaps enter the festival’s pudding contest). This event offers food, music, and lots of fun.

You may come as you are, of course, but there WILL be a prize for best costume for those who feel like dressing up.

Now, on to a perfect Halloween recipe. This cake is ideal for the season—moist, full of good things (a treat), and a little surprising (a treat).

I learned to make it from my graduate-school friend Teri Tynes. Teri is smart, vivacious, and just plain fun. Her award-winning blog, Walking Off the Big Apple, is the thinking woman’s (and yes, the thinking man’s) guide to New York.

Teri uses her vast knowledge of American culture and history to view the city through the prisms of art, literature, fashion, and photography.

I love to make her pumpkin cake at this time of year and think of her.

The Cake:

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
3-1/8 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons allspice
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups mashed pumpkin
4 eggs1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup raisins

My friend Chas grew this lovely little pumpkin.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan (or spray it with Baker’s Joy). Mix the oil and sugar in a large bowl. Combine 3 cups of the flour and the other dry ingredients and add them to the oil and sugar along with the pumpkin. (Reserve the remaining flour.) Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix the remaining 1/8 cup flour with the nuts and raisins. Add them to the batter. Spoon into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Frost with raisin frosting. Serves 10 to 12.

Teri’s Secret Raisin Frosting

This icing is a bit tricky. It can almost burn if you don’t stir carefully. It looks a little strange and lumpy as it goes on the cake, but the texture of the final product is one of its joys. I love the fact that it’s SUPPOSED to look messy since most of my baked goods look that way anyway.

Ingredients:

1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup raisins (plus a few more if you can’t resist; I usually just throw them in impulsively)
1 generous handful of flaked, sweetened coconut

Instructions:

Combine the first 5 ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 12 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in the coconut and raisins. Let the frosting stand for a minute (or maybe 2 or 3) to cool slightly. Spoon and spread it generously over your pumpkin cake.

I was hoping to look exotic and gorgeous in these glasses, like Halle Berry in "Catwoman." Instead, I'm afraid I look more like Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard"--creepy and middle aged. Oh, well ... Halle, Gloria, and Tinky all wish you a Happy Halloween!

Autumn Apple Pizza

At this time of year I like to put apples in just about everything. So I decided to try baking an apple pizza.

My family was skeptical about the idea and made me order a traditional tomato pie as a backup just in case the apple version was a dud. I was proud to note that my pizza disappeared long before the pizzeria product.

Another time I think I’ll try throwing a little fresh rosemary or sage into the apple mixture. It was pretty flavorful this way, however. For those of you who can’t eat cheddar cheese, I recommend substituting a little goat feta.

Ingredients:

1 pound commercial pizza dough (make your own if you want to; I was feeling lazy!)
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
butter as needed for sautéing
2 apples cored but not peeled and sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt
cooking spray for pan
a tiny bit of extra-virgin olive oil for greasing the pan
1-1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
4 pieces cooked bacon, cut or ripped into tiny pieces (optional)

Instructions:

Bring the pizza dough to room temperature and preheat the oven as indicated in your dough instructions.

Sauté the onion slices in a little butter, starting with high heat and then reducing it to low. Stir occasionally and cook for 25 to 30 minutes, until the onions have caramelized.

Toss in the apple slices (and a little more butter if it is absolutely necessary) and cook, stirring, for 5 to 7 minutes. The apples should soften only slightly but should be lightly coated with onion/butter juice.

Remove the apple mixture from the heat and toss in the salt.

Roll and/or stretch the pizza dough out gently (this may take a few tries) so that it forms a 14-inch circle (or a rectangle to go onto a cookie sheet if you don’t have a pizza pan).

Spray your pan lightly with cooking spray and oil it even more lightly. Place the dough on the pan. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the dough; then spread on the apple-onion mixture. Toss on the bacon pieces if you’re using them. (We were serving half meat eaters and half vegetarians so we put bacon on half of the pizza. Everyone was happy.)

Bake the pizza until the cheese is nicely melted and the bottom of the crust turns golden brown. With my crust (from Trader Joe’s) and my oven (old) this took 10 to 12 minutes, but do check frequently. You won’t want your work of art to burn. Makes one medium pizza.

Truffle loves pizza--and fall--so she was happy with her tiny taste of apple pizza.

Teacher Bread

This moist, sweet bread makes a better bribe than a plain old apple. I was going to try it with raisins or dried cranberries (which you may certainly do), but my nephew Michael cast his vote for apricots.

The bread we made together goes perfectly with mulled cider.

My familiar is getting ready for Halloween! Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely and talented Lorelei Lee.

Ingredients:

1 cup canola oil
1-1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
3 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups flour
2 cups grated apples
1 cup cut-up dried apricots
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the oil and sugar and beat in the eggs.

Beat in the baking soda, cinnamon and baking powder. Stir in the salt. Stir in the apples, apricots and nuts (if desired).

Bake in greased loaf pans for 45 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes 2 loaves.

I'm getting ready for Halloween myself!

Don’t forget: readers have until tonight at midnight to register for the drawing for a copy of the book The Perfect Pumpkin. All active email subscribers to this blog will be eligible for the drawing. If you’re not a subscriber and would like to sign up, please click on the link below.

Subscribe to In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens by Email.

Apple-Sage Cheese Spread

I am FINALLY back to apples, thanks to my friends at the West County Independent. My apple recipes and photos were lost in the most recent Great Tinky Computer Debacle, but the wonderful Ginny and Kim have retrieved some of them from an article I wrote for the paper.

So–here is the apple-cheddar spread I promised a couple of weeks ago. It is creamy and refreshing on crackers or even on apples. If you don’t have fresh sage, you may use dried, but fresh is best.

Ingredients:

1/2 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
a small amount of butter for sautéing
1 medium apple, cored and sliced but not peeled
4 ounces (1/2 brick) cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup (packed) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
6 to 10 fresh sage leaves, depending on taste, finely chopped (plus additional unchopped sage for garnish)

Instructions:

In a small, nonstick frying pan, sauté the onion pieces in the butter until they start to soften.

Add the apple pieces. Cook and keep stirring until they are slightly soft as well.

Beat the cheeses together with a mixer or a wooden spoon. Stir in the apples, onion pieces, and chopped sage.
Place the mixture in a bowl. Chill for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend; then bring the spread to room temperature before serving.

Makes just under two cups, more or less, depending on the size of your apple.

Night Kitchen Chai Panna Cotta

The atmosphere in the Night Kitchen is serene.

Perhaps the Sawmill River calms the owner/chef, Max Brody, and his colleagues. The restaurant is perched above the water in an old gristmill in Montague, Massachusetts.

Perhaps Max is just a peaceful sort of person. The colors he has chosen for the restaurant—soft browns, natural wood tones, and shades of rose—gently gladden the heart. His food does as well.

Max grew up loving and preparing food. “I’ve been working in restaurants since I was 10 years old,” he told me recently while sitting at a riverside table in his dining room. “Friends of my parents owned a little bistro. I did my duty as a dishwasher for many years.”

He worked his way up through the ranks in American restaurants and continued his culinary and life education with three years cooking and traveling overseas. One of his favorite gigs during this period of his life found him in a restaurant in a former monastery in Tuscany owned by a guy named Lorenzo de’ Medici.

I told him I thought Lorenzo the Magnificent lived in the 15th century, and he informed me that there is now ANOTHER Lorenzo who frequents culinary rather than political circles.

Max learned from chefs in India and Nepal as well as those in Europe and the U.S.

He returned to the United States to cement his cooking expertise with a degree from the Culinary Institute of America. He and his wife, an elementary school teacher, settled here in the Pioneer Valley when she pursued graduate work at Smith College. Max ended up running the executive dining room at Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in Springfield.

The pair lived in Montague. When the space in which the Night Kitchen now resides became available five and a half years ago Max saw a new future opening up almost literally in front of him.

“I think I just kind of got tired of working for other people,” he told me. “While there’s much more responsibility [owning a restaurant] it’s also more fulfilling and gratifying. I find it more worthwhile.”

I asked Max how he would characterize his cuisine. He didn’t actually definite it, describing it as eclectic.

“I didn’t want to limit what we could cook to a certain cuisine,” he explained. “I try to take different things from different areas, to use different flavor combinations while keeping everything simple.” He noted that he also likes to make his dishes appropriate to the season.

The Night Kitchen is open only four evenings a week (Thursday through Sunday). Max noted that he has a one-year-old child at home whom he wants to see. “It’s a matter of trying to keep [the business] sustainable,” he said. “The restaurant industry is known for burning people out.”

He noted that his business has remained steady despite the economy. “We haven’t raised our prices in two years, and I think people appreciate that. Nobody leaves hungry, and people appreciate the value.”

Max speculated that something about the restaurant, perhaps the river flowing beside it, is conducive to romance. The Night Kitchen has had seven weddings scheduled in October and has seen its fair share of proposals as well. “We have people coming back time after time. It’s memorable,” he said.

The pudding Max Brody made for me at the Night Kitchen was certainly memorable—an Italian panna cotta (cream custard) that combined local sweet potatoes and fruit with South Asian spices. The recipe, which involves tea bags, sounds odd, but the final product comes together beautifully. It’s creamy, aromatic, and easy to cook and eat.

I’ll be back soon with another recipe, and I promise it won’t be for pudding! Meanwhile, here is Max’s delectable dessert.

The Old Mill

The Panna Cotta

Max Brody uses sheet gelatin for this recipe. He knew that most home cooks wouldn’t have it in the house so we substituted packaged gelatin in this recipe. If you happen to have access to sheets, you don’t need to worry about blooming them; just add two sheets to the custard when asked to add the gelatin and water in the recipe.

Ingredients:

1/2 package gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
2-1/2 cups heavy cream (Max uses Mapleline)
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup mashed, pureed sweet potatoes
2 chai-flavored tea bags (such as Celestial Seasonings)
3/4 cup crème fraîche

Instructions:

Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and set it aside to “bloom” (dissolve) for 5 to 10 minutes.

In a saucepan combine the cream, sugar, and vanilla. Add the sweet potatoes and then the tea bags.

Bring the liquid just to the boil (watch it, or it will boil over!). Remove the pan from the heat. Take out the tea bags, and whisk in the crème fraîche.

Stir the gelatin into the water so that it dissolves completely. Slowly whisk the gelatin water into the panna cotta until it is completely incorporated.

Grease 6 6-ounce silicone molds with nonstick spray. Divide the gelatin mixture among them.

Chill for at least two hours, or until set; then unmold and serve. Max likes to garnish these little custards with fruits, nuts—whatever takes his fancy. The day I visited he pressed peach slices in sugar and browned them in butter in a grill pan for extra flavor and texture. Now that peaches are out of season, I think I’d use apples.

Serves 6.


Don’t forget: readers have until Monday night to register for the drawing for a copy of the book The Perfect Pumpkin. All email subscribers to this blog will be eligible for the drawing. If you’re not a subscriber and would like to sign up, please click on the link below.

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Cyndie's Cheesy Corn Pudding

With LESS THAN TWO WEEKS to go before the Pudding Hollow Pudding Festival, I thought I’d post another pudding recipe. I hope it inspires readers to enter the festival’s gala pudding contest.

This year’s festival falls on October 31 so I’m offering a recipe from the Queen of Halloween in my hometown of Hawley, Massachusetts, town clerk Cyndie Stetson.

Each autumn the spooky display outside Cyndie’s home on West Hawley Road dazzles those of us who drive by. It offers a number of vignettes—a pumpkin crossing, a mad scientist’s lab, a witch’s lair, and a pirate ship—plus assorted spider webs, severed limbs, tombstones, and ghosts.



Indoors, Cyndie celebrates with Halloween jewelry, lights, dolls, and crawling creatures, plus (my personal favorite) an orange cocktail shaker and matching martini glasses.

Cyndie assures me she is entering this year’s contest. Two years ago her Autumn Comfort Pudding won the top award, and she has placed as a finalist several times.

The hearty pudding recipe below made it to the finals a few years back. It’s perfect comfort food for our current chilly, drippy weather.

I plan to adapt it soon. I’d like to substitute standard ingredients for the muffin mix. I’d also like to experiment with a Southwestern version and add a little chipotle and/or cumin. Meanwhile, below lies the easy version from the Queen of Halloween herself.

Before I give you the recipe, I want to let readers know about my new book giveaway. In keeping with the season, I am holding a drawing for a copy of The Perfect Pumpkin by Gail Damerow. The book offers a little history, a little advice on cultivation, and a number of tasty-looking recipes.

Anyone who takes out an email subscription to this blog will be eligible for the drawing, which will take place at approximately midnight EDT next Monday, October 26. This includes current subscribers, of course (I hope you’ll spread the word to your friends)! If you’re not a subscriber and would like to sign up, please click on the link below.

Subscribe to In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens by Email

Good luck! And now, here’s Cyndie’s recipe……

Ingredients:

1 8-1/2-ounce box corn muffin mix
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1 cup sour cream
1 14-3/4 ounce can cream-style corn, with liquid
1 15-1/4 ounce can whole-kernel corn, with liquid
1 medium onion, diced and sautéed in olive oil
1 medium green or red bell pepper, diced and sautéed in olive oil
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (use a little more for ultimate cheesy-ness)
1 dash each salt and pepper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, blend all the ingredients well. Place them in a well greased 11-by-7 inch baking pan or round 2-quart casserole dish.

Bake the pudding until it is lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. This will take about an hour, but start checking after about 45 minutes. Serves 6 as a main dish or 8 to 10 as a side dish.

Cyndie (right) was surprised at her pudding-contest victory in 2007.

Salsa Verde Pie

Happy World Food Day! This is also known as World Bread Day. I’m not actually posting a bread recipe today (my new apple bread recipe is still locked in the sick laptop). If readers want to join bakers all over the world in making bread, I recommend the warm, moist pumpkin bread recipe I posted last year at about this time.

Meanwhile, this slightly spicy pie should help you celebrate the larger holiday in appropriately green fashion. I don't want to seem frivolous; I know WFD is actually about hunger awareness. YOU won't be hungry after eating your pie, but please take some time this week and every week to contribute to a food bank or a cause that feeds the hungry.

When life gives you tomatillos, make salsa………

My neighbors Sally and David Rich were clearing out their garden recently and shared part of their tomatillo harvest with me. One doesn’t think of tomatillos as growing in New England, but Sally produced a bumper crop!

I started out to make salsa verde, but when the weather took a cold turn I decided to throw my green sauce into a quiche. Luckily, I was invited to a dinner party at my friend Chas’s house so my mother and I didn’t have to absorb all the calories in this tasty, cheesy pie.

Ingredients:

for the green sauce:

2 cups halved tomatillos (remove and discard the husks first and rinse the tomatillos to remove stickiness!)
1 jalpeño pepper, chopped (more if desired; my pie wasn’t very spicy)
1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, finely minced
several sprigs of cilantro
the juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 teaspoon salt (or a little more to taste)

for the quiche:

1 9-inch single pie crust
1 medium bell pepper, cut into thin slices
a small amount of butter for sautéing
1-1/ 2 cups grated store cheese (plus a little more if you just adore cheese)
the green sauce
4 eggs
1-1/2 cups cream

Instructions:

First, make the salsa verde. Roast the tomatillo halves under the broiler until they begin to brown, 5 to 7 minutes, stirring once or twice. (Watch them!)

Remove them from the oven and let them cool.

In a blender or food processor, combine the roasted tomatillos with all the other ingredients, and puree. If you want to keep the salsa as plain salsa, you'll have just under 1 cup.

If you prefer to make the pie, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Set aside a few pepper slices for garnish. Sauté the remaining pieces in the butter until they just begin to soften. Place them on the pie crust. Cover them with the cheese.

In a bowl, whisk together the green sauce and eggs. Whisk in the cream, and quickly pour the mixture onto the pie shell. Bake the quiche for 15 minutes.

Decorate the top of the pie with the remaining pepper slices and reduce the heat to 350 degrees. Bake the pie until the custard begins to set, 30 to 40 minutes more.

Serves 6.

An Apple Pie Made with Love

Apple pie means many things to many people–patriotism, home, grandmother, fall, Thanksgiving……

To tell you the truth, I’ve never been a pie enthusiast, but I respect the reverence many of my fellow New Englanders and Americans have for apple pie.

So when I was asked to help judge an Apple Pie Contest last week I took the job seriously. The contest, sponsored by Pierce Bros Coffee, was one of the highlights of the Fall Festival at the First Congregational Church of Shelburne, Massachusetts.

Luckily, my two fellow judges were veterans of the contest. Jay Fidanza of WHAI Radio and Beth Lorenz of Lorenz Honda showed me the ropes. They were both serious and speedy.

Jay told me he knew a winner when he tasted it. Beth said she liked to look for contrasting flavors and textures in a pie.

When asked what I thought defined the best apple pie, I declared that the best pies were ”made with love.”

Several of the eight pies assembled took a little ranking. But we had no trouble identifying the best pie right off the bat. Number eight was both tart and sweet, and its crust was not only gorgeous but mouth-meltingly buttery.

When the prizes were awarded, we discovered that it had indeed been made with love, by fifteen-year-old Jaimye Larsen of Shelburne, with some help from her mother Anne.

Here’s their recipe. Throw in some of your own love and serve it to guests. They will swoon!

Ingredients:

for the crust

2/3 cup salted butter
1 cup flour
1/3 cup ice water

for the filling:

5 cups apples (half Macs, half Cortlands)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 generous teaspoon cinnamon
lots of pats of butter

for finishing:

about 1 tablespoon cream
cinnamon sugar to taste

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 470 degrees.

Prepare the crust. Combine the butter and flour and dump in the ice water. Don’t overmix the pastry. Roll it out into two crusts.

Place the bottom crust in your pie pan. Combine the apples, sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon. Place this filling over the crust. Dot pats of butter on top.

Gently lay the top crust on top of the filling. Cut little holes or slits in the top to allow the crust to breathe, and drizzle cream over the top. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar overall.

Pop the pie into the oven, and immediately reduce the heat to 450 degrees. Bake for 1/2 hour. Jaimye and Anne say it will be slightly undercooked–which is the effect they want.

Serves 6 to 8.

Baker Jaimye Larsen (left) and Judge Beth Lorenz share a piece of pie.

Tinky's Cider Butternut Soup

My laptop is still suffering–but I am attempting a post because I have NEWS!

I, Tinky Weisblat, will be one of the featured Western Massachusetts artisans on Monday's episode of the television program Making It Here.

The segment will focus on my work as a food writer and will depict the creation of my soon-to-be-world-famous Cider Butternut Soup.

Local viewers take note: The episode will air this coming Monday, October 12, at 7:30 pm on Channel 57 (WGBY-TV) in Springfield, Massachusetts. Those of you who watch, please be kind. I know I need a face lift! Look at the soup instead of at me.

Of course, all of you may try the soup! Here’s the recipe………..

Ingredients:

2 to 3 tablespoons butter
1-1/2 large onions, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 medium apples (fairly solid ones for cooking; I used Ginger Gold), cored and chopped but not necessarily peeled
3 cups roasted butternut squash puree (for roasting instructions, see my post about the Blue Heron Restaurant, which has another great butternut recipe!)
1-1/2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon (at least) freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
lots of freshly ground pepper
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups hard cider (I used West County Cider McIntosh, a sweet and fruity cider)
2 cups heavy cream (I used Mapleline)
toasted pecans or croutons for garnish (optional)

Instructions:

In a 4-quart Dutch oven melt the butter. When it begins to talk to you, sauté the onions and garlic until they are soft (about 5 minutes).

Add the apple pieces, and sauté until they are moistened, about 2 minutes.

Stir in the squash, followed by the honey, nutmeg, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Stir for a minute or two (taking care to keep the mixture from burning); then stir in the stock.

Bring the soup to a boil. Cover it about 7/8 of the way, and turn it down. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, until it tastes souplike.

Remove the soup from the heat, and puree it. I used my immersion blender for this (which worked as long as I kept it immersed; when I accidentally lifted it I think I got a little soup on the TV camera!). You may also use a blender or food processor, but be very careful to process this hot soup in batches.

In a nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat reduce the cider in half. (This takes only a few minutes.)

Add the cream and reduce in half again, whisking (again quite a short process).

You then have a choice. You may either stir the cider/cream reduction into the soup and serve it or put the reduction into a pitcher and let your guests drizzle it into the soup at the table.

Garnish with toasted nuts or croutons. Serves 6.

Two quick notes: First, thanks to those who emailed me or commented to note that I FORGOT TO PUT THE BUTTERNUT SQUASH IN THE LIST OF INGREDIENTS! A girl with a sick laptop is a girl on the edge, and I appreciated the reminders.

Second, those of you who live in the Pioneer Valley and aren't quite ready to make the transition to fall vegetables will be happy to read the comment below from Nikki Ciesluk, who reports that her family's lovely farmstand in Deerfield still has corn!

Happy Columbus Day weekend, all………

Please Stand By

Dear Readers (and Haphazard Visitors):

I have a wonderful recipe to share with you. It is stored in my laptop. Unfortunately, the Tinky laptop is under the weather.

The manufacturer is allegedly sending me disks that will (again allegedly) take care of the problem.

Until then, “In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens” will be dark.

I promise new recipes and a book giveaway will be wending their way through the ethernet soon.

In the meanwhile, enjoy the lovely fall weather…………

An Autumn Anniversary

My father died eleven years ago today.

My dog Truffle and I went around the block today to the Pudding Hollow Cemetery to lay a small pumpkin on his grave.

I love his epitaph (my mother’s idea): “A Gentle Man.” Simple and apt.

I also love the cemetery itself. Behind my father’s grave is a stone wall–and behind the stone wall the hills are just beginning to take on color, just as they were in October 1998.

I don’t delude myself that my father’s spirit is actually there in the Pudding Hollow Cemetery. He would never linger long in a place so quiet. He loved conversation, activity … people.

Nevertheless, it’s a lovely spot in which to remember his humor, wisdom, and charm.

If you’d like to read more about my wonderful, gentle father, take a look at the post I wrote on what would have been his 90th birthday. And please take a little time today to celebrate your own parents……..

Apple Picking

But I am done with apple picking now.

This line from Robert Frost’s “After Apple Picking” always moves me.

The poem speaks about the end of much more than apple picking–perhaps life, perhaps the creative process.

The speaker in the poem is weary of apple picking and, it seems, of existence–yet he is haunted by the destiny of the apples that remain unpicked.

“After Apple Picking” embodies perfectly the bittersweet time we’re about to enter here in New England.

It’s true that, if they’re not picked, soon even the loveliest and most perfect of apples will be pressed into cider or left on the side of the road for wild creatures to enjoy. The animals will nibble and then move on, leaving the once glorious apples sad and half eaten.

As our lives grow colder many of our relationships, hopes, dreams, projects, and loves will suffer similar fates.

Fall is about making transitions, about taking stock. As the harvest moon rises (as it will on Sunday) we sum up and evaluate what we have reaped over the summer.

Have we put up enough food for winter? Have we shared enough meals, enough money, enough laughter? Have we stacked enough wood for the coming months? Are our bodies fit enough to make it through winter’s darkness and ice?

We ask these questions not just as individuals but also as a community and a society. We donate more food, more clothes, more money for fuel and medicine as winter approaches.

I appreciate this time of reflection and want to honor it. Nonetheless, I can’t join Robert Frost in being done with apple picking.

I want to keep picking and eating apples, both literally and metaphorically. I want to make apple dishes and share them with friends and neighbors and readers.

I want to keep trying to improve my cooking, my writing, my relationships, and my world.

I’m not ready to be “overtired of the great harvest I myself desired.” Maybe this means I’m immature. Maybe it means I’m not a true Yankee. Whatever it means, I’m stuck with it.

Join me in picking and celebrating apples! Let’s keep as many as we can from the cider press and the gutter. We can treasure them in our root cellars, our kitchens, and our spirits.

As time goes by I’ll be sharing more recipes I’ve been enjoying as I engage in apple picking this early autumn.

I begin with the first of two apple-cheese spreads for which I have concocted recipes. I created it last fall, but somehow it didn’t make it onto this blog, which is a shame. It’s simple, and it combines two of my favorite foods.

If you use really great blue cheese — think Stilton or Roquefort! — this spread for crackers will be truly elegant. It’s pretty tasty with generic blue cheese, however.

You may be tempted to add a little more apple, but if you do you’ll end up with a rather wet spread.

Happy fall…………

(Courtesy of Susan Hagen)

Simple Apple-Blue Cheese Spread

Ingredients:

1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
1-1/2 tablespoons sweet butter
2 large apples (about 2 cups), cored and sliced (but not peeled)
4 ounces (about 1 cup) blue cheese, crumbled
1 8-ounce brick cream cheese, softened

Instructions:

In a small, nonstick frying pan, sauté the onion pieces in the butter until they begin to soften. Add the apple pieces. Cook and keep stirring until they are slightly soft as well. Beat the cheeses together with a mixer or wooden spoon. Stir in the apple-onion mixture. Place the mixture in a bowl. Chill for at least 1 hour; then bring the spread to room temperature before serving. Makes about two cups.

Keep this spread refrigerated for up to three or four days, but be sure to bring it to room temperature again before you eat it to optimize flavor and texture.