Our family Thanksgiving dinner always used to end with apple pie, because it would have been unthinkable not to have my mom’s perfectly perfect apple pie, and also pecan pie, because my sister-in-law Eileen, who claims she isn’t a good cook, nevertheless makes one spectacular pecan pie.

Unfortunately, my daughter Gillian is allergic to pecans, so we haven’t served pecan pie on Thanksgiving for decades. 

No problems. I love to fuss and fix recipes. So I came up with nut pie versions that didn’t cause a health problem and were also really tasty. Like this one for Honey Hazelnut pie. Which you could also make with cashews or pistachios.

Honey Hazelnut Pie 

2/3 cup honey

1/3 cup sugar

3 large eggs

3 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

1 cup chopped dried apricots

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the honey, sugar, eggs, melted butter and vanilla extract in a bowl and blend them thoroughly with a whisk. Stir in the flour, salt, hazelnuts and apricots. Pour the mixture into the pie crust. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and crusty. Makes one pie serving 8 people

Anyone over a “certain” age and living in the New York Metropolitan area will remember Horn & Hardart Automats, those grand cafeterias where you could get on the usual line and buy the usual stuff from the steam tables. But it was always more fun to buy the individual portions of food that were set in little alcoves on the wall, each covered by a glass window. You would put the required number of nickels in a slot and poof! the glass window would open and you would take your food and before you knew it the window closed, and another identical portion of food would circle around and take its place.

If you didn’t have enough change you could get some from the “nickel lady,” in charge of the change booth. As I recall, the nickel ladies were always plump.

My Aunt Roz and Uncle Mac used to take me and my cousin Leslie to the Automat when we went ice skating in Manhattan. The two of us always had the vegetable plate: macaroni and cheese, hash browns and spaghetti.

Dessert depended on the season, but in the autumn I always picked pumpkin pie.

I remember Automat pumpkin pie as a miracle. It was tender, moist and not too spicy. It had a golden sheen on top and nice, crumbly crust. It was the best pumpkin pie ever, even better than my Mom’s.

And so, even after the ice skating days were done and trips to the Automat over, I would sometimes make my way over to one to pick up a slice of pie. 

Then the Automats closed, pushed out of the gastronomic mainstream by the likes of the McDonald’s and Burger King of the world.

Neither of those eateries have pumpkin pie.

Wow, do I wish I had that Automat recipe.

I make a different pumpkin pie every year. I don’t know if the one below is better than the Automat’s. Memories can be deceiving. But I can say it is delicious. Tender, moist, and with a glossy sheen on top. Perfect for Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Pie

1-3/4 cups mashed pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

1-1/2 cups half and half cream, evaporated milk or nut milk (such as MimicCream)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 9-inch unbaked pie crust

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Beat the eggs, sugar and brown sugar with a whisk or electric beater set at medium for a minute or until well blended. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the cream until well blended. Add the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt and beat ingredients for a minute or until well blended. Pour into the pie crust. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 45 minutes or until set. Remove from the oven and let cool. Makes one pie serving 8 people

Oh for goodness’ sake! Don’t we fight about enough things? Now do we have to argue about whether “ethnic” food is a real “concept” or a pejorative term?

This article in the Wall Street Journal got me all agitated. The writer says there’s no definition of “ethnic food” in the Oxford dictionary and that the term means food eaten by people poorer than we are. And apparently there was a debate on this topic at the London Restaurant Festival this year. Someone said the French coined the term to describe food that isn’t French or Italian cuisine in the Michelin guide. And another person said that the term “favors segregation over inspiration.” 

But someone else said that ethnic food describes foods that exist in one place that no one else eats.

And so on, blah blah blah.

The writer then concludes that because contemporary chefs are inspired by global influences, ethnic cuisine will soon be “redundant.”

In my opinion, that would be awful.

I have been a food writer for decades. I am fully aware of “modernist cuisine,” which has no ties to any particular culture. I love it if it’s done well and look forward to creative dining and lovely, delicious foods made with intriguing, multi-national ingredients and concepts. (Though I must say, there are far too many restaurants that make too many precious looking dishes with too many ingredients and think they are modernist but it’s really just a hodgepodge).

On the other hand, I also love foods that are particular to a region or culture. I want Egyptian food when I’m in Egypt, German specialties in Germany, Pennsyvania Dutch food in Pennsylvania. I am not insulted when people refer to my grandmother’s recipes as “ethnic” Jewish cooking. Frankly, I would hate it if “modernist” blintzes or “California-style” stuffed cabbage or “artisanal” challah, whatever that could mean, replaced my old favorites. 

I remember taking a trip many years ago with my husband and children to Quebec. I’d been there years before and enjoyed “Cuisine Quebecoise.” Good, “ethnic” cuisine. I looked forward to it again (OH for some of that Pain du Sucre: homestyle white bread with maple sugar and cream!! So simple. So wonderful!). Unfortunately, it was not to be. All the restaurants that were recommended had “modernist” Canadian. Huge disappointment. When you have a hunger for traditional Pain du Sucre, multigrain bread with cocoa-encrusted maple sugar with rambutan-scented mascarpone foam just doesn’t cut it.

I like “ethnic” food. And I actually don’t care if people want to create riffs on the old favorites. In fact, it’s what I do.

But I still would like to feast on those old favorites too. Russian Borscht. Cantonese Egg Rolls. Polish Potato Pierogi, Israeli Falafel, Irish Colcannon, Jewish Mandelbrot.

Please tell me they will not be “redundant.”

Mandelbrot

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

2-1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon brandy or apple juice

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1/3 cup cut up candied cherries

1/3 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of a mixer set at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until creamy and well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add 2-1/2 cups of the flour, baking powder, brandy, almond extract and salt and beat at medium speed until the ingredients are thoroughly blended. Blend in the remaining flour if the pastry is very sticky. Fold in the nuts, cherries, chocolate chips and raisins. On a lightly floured surface, divide the dough into thirds and shape each piece into an oval loaf about 1-1/2 to 2 inches thick. Place the loaves on the cookie sheet. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the loaves are golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool. Serve sliced, as is, or toast the slices for extra crispness. Makes 3 loaves. 

Sukkot, which begins at sundown tomorrow (October 12th) is very much like Thanksgiving. Both holidays celebrate the harvest and there’s a feast of good food to eat. 

The difference is that on Sukkot, according to Rabbinic tradition, you’re supposed to eat all your meals in a sukkah (a “hut” or “booth”), outside. Which is probably the way the colonial Pilgrims ate their Thanksgiving dinner, now that I think of it.

A lot of Jewish families build sukkahs. Of course you have to have a backyard or some sort of property. Or a fire escape. Or some place where you can build a makeshift hut, even if it is just a “representation” of a real sukkah. If you belong to a synagogue you can go to a communal sukkah of course. 

In any event, I don’t know anyone who actually eats all their meals outside in a hut. I know maybe one or two who build a sort of sukkah and they have dessert out there on the first night of the holiday. My family never built one when I was a kid. The closest I ever got to eating in a sukkah was when my cousin Leslie and I hung a bedspread over a card table, crawled inside and ate potato chips.

To tell the truth, my husband and I didn’t build one for our kids either. They visited the one at their Sunday school.

But Sukkot food is really good no matter where you eat it. Because it follows the season and the harvest, like all good food. Sukkot food features end-of-summer and beginning-of-autumn fruits and vegetables: apples, pears, squash, pumpkin, eggplant and stuff like that.

Sukkot foods are also usually easily transportable too — for those people who will be carrying the food out to the hut.

Here’s a seasonal dessert that’s yummy, easy and you can take anywhere:

Pear and Ginger Crisp

6 ripe pears

juice of half lemon

1-1/2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

Crust:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel, core and slice the pears into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, ginger, cinnamon, 1/3 cup brown sugar, flour and salt. Toss the ingredients and place in a baking dish. Make the crust: Combine the 3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar and salt in a bowl. Add the butter in chunks and work into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Scatter over the pears. Bake for about 35 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving (or serve at room temperature). Makes 6-8 servings

Another recipe for Plum Torte?

Yeah. Why not?! 

Because it’s one of the best of the best cakes to eat. No, don’t say you like chocolate cake or coconut cake better. Plum Torte serves an entirely different purpose. You can’t compare it to any other cake. It’s its own thing.

I have no idea why Plum Torte is a typical Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur Break-the-Fast dessert. Maybe it’s because those lovely little Italian prune plums needed for the recipe are in season at about the same time as the Jewish High Holidays. All I know is that this was one of THE desserts for the holidays even when I was a little girl.

There are dozens of recipes for it. Plum Torte is one of those recipes like apple pie. Everyone who bakes one does a little something different. The New York Times used to print their tried-and-true recipe every September. I’ve made that one and it is quite good. This one is even better. I just made two to freeze and reheat for my annual Break-the-Fast Saturday night:

Plum Torte

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup plus one tablespoon sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

15 prune plums, pit removed, quartered

lemon juice (about one tablespoon)

cinnamon (about 1/4 teaspoon)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and 3/4 cup sugar on medium speed for 3-4 minutes or until creamy and well blended. Add the flour, baking powder, lemon peel and salt and mix briefly to blend ingredients slightly. Add the eggs and beat at medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until smooth and creamy. Spoon the batter into the prepared springform pan. Arrange the plum quarters on top, pressing them slightly into the batter. Sprinkle the cake with the remaining tablespoon sugar. Squeeze some lemon juice over the cake and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake for 55-60 minutes or until browned, set and crispy. Let cool. Makes 8 servings

When you make an apple pie, do you peel all the apples first? Then core them, then slice them, then mix them with the other ingredients? Or are you the kind of cook who peels, cores and slices one apple, then does the same with the second, third, and so on?

That question has come up in my family. My nephew Mitchell said he would do all the prep one apple at a time. His wife, my niece Rachel, said she would do all the peeling, then the coring, etc., etc. 

My daughters Meredith and Gillian and husband Ed were more on the Rachel wave length, though Ed did say he probably would never bake an apple pie.

Then they asked me. But here’s the deal with me. I make 3 or 4 pies at a time. I absolutely would tear the hair out of my head if I had to do it Mitchell style. To me that would be like the kind of punishment teachers gave in the old days when you did something bad and they made you write “I’ll never do THAT again” 100 times. (Even then, some people wrote the entire sentence 100 times. Some wrote the first word 100 times, then the second, and so on).

But the thought of peeling all those apples before I could core and then cut them also sounded really awful, like having to watch an entire season of one TV program before I could watch something else.

I peel a few, then core a few, throw out the scraps, then slice the prepped apples into a huge bowl, then start again with the next batch to peel, then core, then slice.

We all tried to figure out what it all meant. My sister-in-law Eileen, a psychologist, thought maybe I had an attention disorder. 

But it’s just that I make so many pies at a time, the repetition of one task is just too boring. It would make the pie baking process a thankless job rather than something pleasurable, which it actually is because they taste so wonderful and looks so homey and comforting. The house smells pretty good too.

I thought about this today as I began my yearly pie baking. You can see the result of my afternoon’s labor in the photos. I’ve already finished 7 pies and they’re already in the freezer. Notice the photo at the bottom. This pie is a little different because it has a streusel crust. Ed doesn’t like regular pie, only streusel topped pie, so I make a few of these every year too.

I’ve given you my recipe for Apple Pie. Here’s the recipe for the Streusel. Everything else is just the same: bottom crust, apple filling — place the streusel on top and bake just as you would bake the standard kind of pie.

Pie Streusel

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, optional

6 tablespoons butter

Combine the flour, sugar and cinnamon, if used, in a food processor (or bowl). Cut the butter into small chunks and pulse the ingredients for a few seconds until the mixture looks like crumbs (or work the butter in with your fingers). Makes enough for one 9 or 10-inch pie

Sibling Rivalry Part 2

Yesterday I mentioned the apple-baking rivalry between my Mom and her sister, my Aunt Beck. It was a really fascinating thing for them to be competitive about because although my mother loved to cook and was really good at it, Aunt Beck wasn’t much of a food person and never thought of herself as much of a cook. In fact, my grandma lived with that family and she did most of the cooking.

Somehow the sisters got themselves into this apple thing though. Aunt Beck figured that her little sister could star in the kitchen but, well, with this one exception.

Aunt Beck’s family, the Cohens, raved about the apple cake.

My family, the Vails, raved about the apple pie.

To tell you the truth, both were really delicious. I make both and am in competition with no one. 

So, Aunt Beck, you may not have thought of yourself as a stellar cook, but you did let me and Leslie play with all your snazzy clothes and open toe high heels and you did actually make a fabulous apple cake. So, here’s to you. I miss you.

Your recipe:

Aunt Beck’s Famous Two-Crust Apple Cake

Crust:

2 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup orange juice

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon grated fresh orange peel, optional

Filling:

3 pounds tart apples, peeled and sliced

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon if desired

2-3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons butter or margarine, cut into tiny pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. To make the crust, beat the eggs, sugar, vegetable oil and orange juice together in a mixer set at medium speed for 1-2 minutes or until well mixed. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and orange peel, if used, and mix until a smooth, soft, uniform dough has formed, about 2-3 minutes. Cut the dough into two pieces, one piece twice as large as the other. Press the larger piece into the bottom and halfway up the sides of a 13”x9” pan (or roll the dough and fit it inside the pan). Mix the apples, sugar, cinnamon if used, and flour together in a bowl (the amount of flour depending on juiciness of the apples) and place the mixture over the dough. Dot the surface with butter. Roll the smaller piece of dough and place it on top. Press the edges to seal them. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until well browned. Makes 12 servings

Sibling Rivalry, Part I

I timed last year’s apple pies perfectly. Every September I call Blue Jay Orchards in Bethel, Connecticut and order a bushel of Rhode Island Greening apples. They are one of the only orchards that I know who still grows this stupendously wonderful apple variety that is the absolutely best apple for pie no matter what anyone else, even the most expert of experts in the food business, says. 

I make 12 apple pies every year and then, as the months go by, eat them down when company comes or my grandson Zev who eats almost nothing but likes my apple pie so of course there’s some for him when he visits.

So now I have one pie left, which we will have this week because I just called Blue Jay and put in my order for this year.

When I called them last week they weren’t sure they would have the apples this year because of all the rain and hurricanes, especially Hurricane Irene. Ohmyohmyohmy, that sounded like terrible news at the time and I actually began to think about other apples I could bake into a pie.

But they told me to call back in a day or so and sure enough, when I did they told me that they have some! So I am in luck.

I never did decide on what apples I would have used.

Anyway, my Mom made apple pie every year too. Her sister, my Aunt Beck, made apple cake. And, you know, sisters will be sisters. They loved each other lots but they had this kind of apple-baking rivalry come September, when the new apples came out. They each not-so-secretly let everyone in the family know that the pie or cake was much better than the cake or pie.

And so it went. I liked both, but, being daughter to the pie baker, I learned to bake the pie.

My mother was the one who clued me into the Rhode Island Greening apples. And she showed me how to make the dough and how to cut the butter and shortening into the flour so the crust would be crumbly and how not to add too much liquid because that makes the dough rubbery. She also taught me how to roll the dough gently, so it would be tender. “Don’t murder the dough!,” she used to caution.

Her apple pies were the best of the best and I use her recipe, so, well, I don’t want to brag but —- everyone says mine are the best of the best.

Here’s the recipe., You might not be able to find Rhode Island Greening apples. So you’re on your own here. If you use a sweeter apple, cut back on the sugar. 

Apple Pie

crust:

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon grated fresh lemon peel, optional

1/2 cup cold butter

1/3 cup cold vegetable shortening

4-6 tablespoons cold milk, juice, water or melted ice cream

apple filling

1 tablespoon butter

To make the crust: Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and lemon peel, if used, in a large bowl. Cut the butter and shortening into chunks and add the chunks to the flour mixture. Work the fat into the flour mixture until the ingredients resemble crumbs (use your hands, a pastry blender or the pulse feature of a food processor). Add the liquid, using only enough to gather pastry into a soft ball of dough (start with 4 tablespoons). Cut the dough in half and flatten each half to make a disk shape. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it stand at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly flour a pastry board or clean work surface. With a rolling pin, roll one half of the dough on the floured surface into a circle about 1/8-inch thick, making sure the circle is larger than the pie pan by about 1 inch. Place the dough in a 9” or 10” pie pan. Pour the apple filling into the pastry-lined pan. Cut the butter into small pieces and place on top of the filling. Roll out the remaining dough and place it over the filling. Gently press the bottom and top crusts together along the flared edge of the pie pan. For a fluted rim, press your thumb and index finger against the outside of the rim, or crimp it with the tines of a fork or the blunt side of a knife. Cut steam vents in the top crust with the tip of a sharp knife or the tines of a fork. Bake the pie for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown.

Apple Filling:

3 pounds pie apples (Rhode Island Greenings, Granny Smith, Gravenstein, Northern Spy, Golden Delicious, Idared, Stayman, Winesap, Baldwin, Jonagold, Braeburn

1/2 cup sugar, approximately

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Peel and core the apples then cut them into slices. Place the slices in a bowl. Add the sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and flour and toss the ingredients to coat the apple slices evenly.

Green figs are here! I saw a basketful yesterday, soft, round bulbs of sweet flesh that remind me that although summer is almost over, a new season and a harvest of good produce is almost here too. Like purple prune plums and apples and these figs. 

Green figs remind me of days long ago at Northwestern University, where I attended college. In September, after settling in for the year, I would take myself on Sundays to the local hotel, then known as the Orrington, sit down in the dining room, and order fresh, poached green figs in syrup, and eat them with a lot of cold cream. It was an indulgence no one else I knew cared for so I’d go alone, me and my newspaper, and have a quiet breakfast.

I loved those figs. They ushered in a year of art history and contemporary literature, of dormitory-living stress and impending snow. They helped get me ready for the year ahead.

The fig season didn’t — doesn’t — last long. So whether or not they conjure memories for you, they are memorably delicious. I prepared them yesterday in a honey-wine sauce spiced with cardamom. It was delicious. Here’s the recipe:

Honey Poached Figs with Lemon and Cardamom

1 cup sweet white wine

1 cup water

1/2 cup honey

4 green cardamom pods, slightly crushed

2 strips lemon peel, 2-inches long

8 large green fresh figs

1-2 tablespoons crushed pistachio nuts

Combine the wine, water, honey, cardamom pods and lemon peel in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Add the figs and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the fruit is tender but not soft or mushy. Remove the pan from the heat, remove the figs to a dish and let cool. Strain the liquid, then pour the strained liquid back into the pan. Boil the liquid over high heat until it is syrupy. Let the syrup cool. Cut the figs into quarters and place 8 pieces on each of 4 dessert dishes. Drizzle with syrup and sprinkle with crushed pistachio nuts. (If the syrup has firmed, heat it for a minute or so over medium heat to liquefy it.). Makes 4 servings

And that’s the reason why, the other day when I was in my car and listening to an NPR radio call-in show and the subject was “what do you miss?” I thought of several things, but the one that surprised me was “Old fashioned French cuisine.”

Crepes Suzettes and Onion Soup and Duck a L’Orange and Potato Galette and Filet of Beef with Mushrooms, Foie Gras and Madeira sauce. 

And I not only miss the food, which current day aficionados regard as heavy and too rich, I also miss the portion sizes. In the old days you could actually get a hunk of something in a great restaurant. Like a whole duck breast or two or three thick slices of meat. The trend today is toward tasting menus, with many courses but just a few tastes of each.

I like today’s style eating. In fact, I prefer the tasting menus and the new, more creative dishes and use of international ingredients and cooking styles. I am not knocking this more modern, and even healthier approach.

I’m just sayin’ … I miss the other stuff too. 

Does anyone remember going into a French restaurant and sitting down in a lovely room with tables that had crisp linens and bouquets of flowers but mostly the perfume in the air was caramelizing sugar because somewhere, in another part of the room, someone was having dessert and the waiter was preparing the crepes at tableside?

I miss that smell.

I could go for some Crepes Suzettes right now too.

When I get a chance I think I’ll make some crepes and freeze them, for the next time I get a Crepes Suzette attack. 

Of course, these days you can buy ready-made crepes. And if you do, or if you’re the kind of person who already has some frozen ones, you can make this wonderful recipe for Crepes with Orange Butter. It isn’t precisely Crepes Suzette, but is rich, buttery and citrusy and is a whole lot easier to make on short notice.

Crepes with Orange Butter

6 tablespoons butter

6 tablespoons sugar

finely grated peel and juice of one orange

6 tablespoons ground almonds

12-18 crepes (depending on size)

1/3 cup unflavored brandy

1/4 cup orange flavored liqueur

Preheat the oven broiler with the rack about 6-inches from the heat. In a bowl, beat the butter with 4 tablespoons of the sugar until creamy and well blended. Beat in the orange peel, orange juice and almonds. Place equal amounts of the mixture in the center of each of the crepes. Fold the crepes in half, then fold them again so they become triangle shape. Place the filled crepes in a heatproof serving dish. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over the crepes. Place the crepes in the broiler to cook for 2 minutes or so or until the sugar starts to caramelize. While the crepes are under the broiler, heat the brandy and orange flavored liqueur in a pan. When the liquid is hot, ignite it with a match, whirling the pan around until the flames die out. Remove the crepes from the broiler and spoon the hot liquid over them. Makes 6-8 servings