A few of my favorite cookbooks along with some pumpkin peanut butter bread

Open my cookbook cupboard with caution. If you move too quickly, you’ll be deluged with recipe clippings. Because though I have a good many cookbooks, I’m always hungry to try something new.

My mother had a similar cupboard stuffed full of both cookbooks and loose clippings. An enthusiastic cook with a large family to feed, she loved supplementing favorite recipes from the red-and-white checked cooking bible of her era: The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

My go-to cookbook–The Fanny Farmer Cookbook–was the first gift I ever gave my then future husband. He’d learned to cook from a paperback edition found in a drawer of a Korean apartment he lived in as a young Mormon missionary. Valentine’s Day came around a few months into our courtship and not wanting to play my hand too broadly, I figured a cookbook he’d mentioned with fond feelings might convey just enough interest in heating up our relationship.

After our marriage, Fanny was joined by other staples of the ‘80s – Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins’ The Silver Palate Cookbooks, Martha Stewart’s Entertaining and Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts.

Cookbooks by celebrated local chef/authors like Alice Waters, Deborah Madison and Marion Cunningham (who would revise Fanny) would eventually fill up my cookbook cupboard.

I also added clippings from the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. Reading their weekly food sections was a treat I looked forward to consuming.

As a new college graduate and young bride, I worked as a receptionist in the management office of the neo-Gothic Russ Building in downtown San Francisco. Across the hall from my office was a spacious “Ladies Lounge” filled with couches and chairs left over from the Mad Men era. Secretaries would retreat there during their lunch hours to nibble on sack lunches and read paperback novels.

I remember devouring a range of literary pleasures there—Pride & Prejudice and The Far Pavilions are two titles that come to mind. But every Wednesday, I would buy the Times at the lobby newsstand and quickly turn to its food section, having already read the Chronicle’s on my morning commute.

One of the recipes that I clipped during that period is still a fall favorite. Its ingredients are as varied as my reading tastes—pumpkin and peanut butter chips. But the result is surprisingly good—like a mix of classic literature and contemporary romance.

I wish I still had the original clipping so I could credit the contributor and discover this quick bread’s origin, but alas, all I have is my own handwritten notes that attribute it to the Chronicle without a date. Seems I wasn’t as devoted to historical accuracy then as I am now.

Over this pandemic year, I developed an increased appetite for newspaper recipes. The New York Times temporarily replaced its Sunday Travel section with a new section called “At Home.” Each week it featured five simple recipes to help us all survive sheltering in place. Once things opened up this summer, the section closed down. I miss that weekly feast.

However, a regular diet of newspaper clippings over the pandemic didn’t keep me from indulging in a few new cookbooks –Joanne Chang’s Pastry Love and Claire Saffitz’s Dessert Person are favorites. They came to my attention through reviews and sample recipes in newspaper food sections. Which is why I’ll keep clipping and you should be careful if you ever open my cookbook cupboard.

PUMPKIN BREAD WITH PEANUT BUTTER CHIPS

3 1/2 c. unsifted all-purpose flour

3 c. sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 c. cooked or canned pumpkin

2/3 c. water

1 c. vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 c. (12 oz pkg) peanut butter chips

1 c. chopped nuts

1 c. raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch loaf pans (or two larger pans.) Blend dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. In a large bowl blend pumpkin, oil, water and eggs.

Gradually add dry ingredients until well blended. Stir in peanut butter chips, nuts and raisins. Pour into greased and floured pans. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool in pan ten minutes and remove from pan to cool completely.

Note: My husband and several of my kids prefer this without raisins. Go figure. It’s still good. Especially toasted and slathered with butter. Peanut butter chips can sometimes be hard to find. Do not be tempted to substitute butterscotch chips—they’re too sweet.

This essay originally appeared on paperlanternwriters.com

Though we’re likely to get just a handful of trick-or-treaters tonight, it didn’t seem right not to have candy at the door.  So, I swung by the local CVS and wandered the aisles looking for something to serve the brave ghouls and goblins who navigated their way to us. If I had a skeletal metabolism I would have stocked up on Midnight Milky Ways but having a bowlful around the house is just too scary.  I could have chosen something MJ likes, like Smartees, but he’s trying to keep those devilish pounds away as well. I finally settled on a pack of assorted Tootsie Roll products.  They’re not that tempting to me and wouldn’t induce a house egging from an intrepid trick-or-treater (I came all the way here for Dum Dums?) More than that, Tootsie Rolls were my dad’s signature candy. He always carried them in his pocket to hand out to kids at church or grandkids visiting the farm.  If All Hallows Eve followed by All Saints Day and All Souls Day is a season for remembering our dead, I can’t think of a better way to honor my dearly departed dad than with a bowl full of Tootsie Rolls.

Happy Halloween!

Tonight we’re having friends over for a (somewhat) formal dinner party.  Something I’d like to do more often but after a week of planning, shopping, prepping and cooking I remember why this is a rare occasion. It’s a whole lot of work!

I know,  I know.  It doesn’t need to be this way.  I could pick up a lasagna and charcuterie at the local deli and replate them for my guests before serving a simple homemade (or not) dessert.  If I did, I’d entertain more often.

But tonight’s gathering happens to be a dinner we donated to a charity auction last year to raise money for a Sub-for-Santa event. It deserves more effort. So I’ve dug deep–literally, to excavate my old wedding goblets to pair with my new Anthropologie plates—and embraced my inner Martha.

And you know what? Today, when there are fresh flowers on the table and my wedding goblets sparkle in the afternoon sun while the house smells like Mom’s Sunday dinner,  I remember why women used to entertain this way.

Other things I’ve entertained  this week:

Pretty pastries.

The List App. 

George Washington, Mules and Donald Trump.

How to make a newspaper blackout poem.

Mindy tackles every mom’s dilemma.

Halloween (and other) candy reviews.

Goofy ghoulish art.

Happy Halloween Weekend All!

They say this will be the last super hot weekend around here for awhile.  Which makes sense, since we’re having air conditioning installed on Monday.

Until it—and the fog—arrive, we’ll be hydrating like crazy. And thus, today’s Friday Things topic: Plastic Tumblers.

We own a range of nice drinking glasses—everything from the now vintage olive green goblets we got as wedding gifts in 1980 to sleek, contemporary (and easily replaceable) old-fashioneds from Crate & Barrel.  But none of them really hold the amount of ice water/lemonade/Diet Coke that a tall, plastic tumbler can.

For years we had kid-friendly Tupperware tumblers in bright colors.  But it seemed like it was time to class up the everyday glassware  a bit.  I spotted some elegant straight sided clear tumblers on the end-of-summer sale table at Pottery Barn and snapped them up only to find that they couldn’t survive the dishwasher (ahem, not disclosed when I purchased them).  They ended up streaked and cracked and basically useless after a few washings. (See above left.)

I took my search more seriously and finally settled on the Valencia Tall Tumblers from Williams-Sonoma.  So far they’re holding up just fine.  They’re sturdy, the rim is nicely rounded so they’re comfortable to drink from, and they look like running water—a cooling visual effect. Also, like something my Grandma Loosli would have owned.  I’ll let you know how they perform on this last big weekend of icy beverage consumption. In the meantime, here are a few other things I test-drove this week:

Commiseration for those, like my daughter Sydney, who aren’t so happy about fall. (Not me, I can’t wait for it to cool off around here!)

A spooky fun October/Halloween decoration project.

A peek into this SF cookbook author’s kitchen–love the washi tape labeling idea.

The fuss about how women speak.

One person’s meditation about finding his faith (which happens to be my faith.)

This waving Solar-Powered Pope Francis.

My sister Michelle LOVES and heartily endorses the soundtrack to the Broadway production of Hamilton. Can’t wait to give it a listen.

In the meantime, I’ve been listening to Irish singer songwriter Glen Hansard’s new album “Didn’t He Ramble” all week and enjoying it very much.

Happy Weekend All!  Stay cool.

In our new modernist home, a few splashes of orange around the house and a skeleton on the front bench suffice for demonic decor.

I’ve been experimenting with deer-resistant plants in the front pots and though several perennials have given up the ghost already the nasturtiums are thriving.  Right now a strand is crawling into Mr. Bones’s mouth and should pop out of his eye socket just in time for our first batch of trick-or-treaters.  Boo-ray!

Here are some other spooky things spied this week:

Halloween Candy Exchange Rate.

5 Historical Haunted Houses to visit.

Eerie interiors.

Eau d’ Halloween.

A spooktacular alphabet.

No surprise, Elsa rules.

Squash Toast with Ricotta and Cider Vinegar.

An oldie but a goodie – teaching kids about the Day of the Dead.

And finally, for those of you who quake and tremble when facing a trip to IKEA – an IKEA Halloween.

Happy Halloween!

If you’re still looking for some last minute Halloween decor ideas–simpler than this front yard fright fest I spotted in Virginia last week–consider combining seasonal votives and an exceptionally gnarled pumpkin with a black tablecloth.

Or add a string of spooky black cat lights to an all black tablescape like the one Design Within Reach put together for this week’s Dining by Design DIFFA fundraiser in San Francisco.

Then break into the fun-size treats and check out the silly costumes worn by talk show hosts (this is the one time of year I pay attention to morning TV) and this creepy cool new video by David Bowie.

Here’s wishing you a boo-tiful day full of more treats than tricks!