My Week in Food

Pumpkin Pie

Pepernoten

Liver and Onions (with potatoes and mushrooms)

Pickled Radishes

Pear Pie

Missing: roast chicken, bread, chicken stock, and a giant pot of oatmeal.

Pumpkin Pie

It's fall! Though it certainly doesn't feel like it. The last few days have had high temperatures in the 70's, and I've been walking around in skirts and tank tops. Still, it's October and the grocery stores are starting to fill up with squash, peaches, apples, and giant jugs of cider.

Right now it's early enough that all that food seems like a novelty. The deep reddish orange pie pumpkins look like rare jewels after months of summer produce. Don't get me wrong, I love summer (and summer food), but fall is my favorite season. So when I was at the grocery store and saw those gorgeous pumpkins, I had to get one and try my hand at making pumpkin pie.

When I was a kid, my mother generally only made pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. It was one of those holiday foods that we ate once a year (except one year, when my brother asked for it instead of birthday cake). She'd make the crust from scratch, rolling out dough between sheets of waxed paper, and make a filling from canned pumpkin puree.

My mother and I are very different in the kitchen. She loves to cook, but she loves to cook efficiently. At some point in the past, she devoted time to figuring out the best way to get food on the table quickly and with minimal cleanup time afterwards. For her, that's part of the fun of cooking. I understand that, because I find similar pleasure in grocery budgeting and planning my route through the store.* I cook efficiently when I have to, like on winter mornings when I put the kettle on while I get dressed and then use that hot water to make both coffee and oatmeal (pack my purse while the coffee drips and the oatmeal soaks), and I always clean my dishes while I cook. On my days off, though, I prefer to take it slow. Hence the whole pumpkin.

New Cook Book: Betty Crocker

Look what I found for $2 at a garage sale down the street from my house. It's a first edition Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, copyright 1950. I love the funny little illustrations, and the tips written in rhyme:

It's best to use ingredients

The recipe recommends;

But if you have to substitute,

This list solution lends.

And:

Do keep a ruler handy,

To measure pans it's dandy.

Place the rule across the top,

Right size pan prevents a flop!

It's also interesting to read the "food storage" advice, because a lot of it is so different from how things are done now. According to this book coffee and tea are supposed to be refrigerated immediately after opening, and you're only supposed to keep a week's supply on hand.

I'm also digging all of the pictures of "modern" kitchens, they're so cool! I'm finally starting to understand why my mother would watch the Dick Van Dyke show and go on and on about the furniture :)

Anyway, I love my new cook book and I've already used one of the recipes to make an awesome pumpkin pie filling. The only sad thing is that the book's really musty and starts bothering my allergies if I read it for very long.