Nibbling cranberry pumpkin bread
November is alway a busy month. The rush of the holiday season starts mid-November and doesn’t end until the first week of January. It’s a time of change — the weather, my age — and reflection as the year comes to an end.
I started the month in Majorca, coming home with recipe inspiration and making gluten free rolled oats quesadillas and tapas style pasta with pork sausage. I love this pasta dish, and after one bite am taken straight back to the Serra de Tramuntana mountains.
Later in the month I spoke with the lovely Cathy Gayner about her cookbook Recipes from Le Rouzet: An English Cook in France. During our conversation we went off topic and started swapping stories about how our sons eating habits changed when they started school. My son, who used to eat everything on his plate, including all the green vegetables, now only wants baked potatoes with cheese. She assured me that her two sons, now in their 30s, grew out of the phase and now eat everything. “I bet you thought you had a perfect French child who ate everything. Don’t worry, it comes back. I promise!,” she said. One can only hope …
But the conversations didn’t end there because I was also fortunate enough to speak with Philip Evans in North Macedonia. His Aivar dip and roasted vegetables are summer in a jar. My Italian green grocer said that whenever he felt homesick and at his lowest during the Covid-19 pandemic, that he opened a jar of Philip’s roasted eggplant. “It’s a little sun kissed treat from home and in some of the darkest nights of the Covid-19 pandemic a real lifesaver,” he said.
I then spoke with Rebecca Wilson about her latest cookbook Family Comforts: Simple Heartwarming Food to Enjoy Together. Rebecca seems to be going from strength to strength since the start of the pandemic. Her social media reach is now over 400,000 and she’s managed to write three cookbooks while taking care of her daughter. I was very inspired by her journey, to say the least.
And while I sit here writing this newsletter, I’m nibbling on my favorite holiday recipe, cranberry pumpkin bread. An old family recipe that I adapted from my grandmother’s. Just smelling it bake in the oven means that the holiday season is very close. Here’s hoping to a healthy Christmas season full of family and parties.
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