This time of year just seems to bring on nostalgia. Days getting darker, a chill and maybe something raw in the air, wet leaves, or mounds of dry ones that somehow reappear even after you rake them... Homecoming events proliferate -- at my alma maters, or for my kids, who have to figure out how to negotiate the soccer match and the dance -- even though I steadfastly ignore most games that take place on fields of any kind. And with the holidays approaching, a middle aged woman's thoughts turn to food.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, mostly because we always used to spend it with some of my favorite relatives. Plus the winter was coming, and we would often have frost in the morning of the big day. And we had lots of lovely rituals -- going to the apple orchard with my uncle to get cider for the afternoon (and hiding the maple sugar candy he would buy us from our parents); charades or skits or "three-men-on-a-couch" after Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother's. We had Christmas stockings and exchanged presents with these folks, whom we would not see in December. And it was also always my birthday weekend, so we would try to figure out ways not to forget that, especially when I was younger.
But most important, perhaps, was the meal my family hosted: Thanksgiving Brunch. Now I can't quite imagine it -- how did we eat an entire brunch (details to follow) before eating a full Thanksgiving dinner? At the time, though, it was a chance for my mother to host and for us to help in the kitchen. We always played touch football in the yard or the park afterward, and then found some way to spend the rest of the hours before going to my grandmother's house.
Recently, of course, the New York Times has declared that "brunch is for jerks." This is not true. Brunch is a way to eat those yummy breakfast foods that you don't really have time to prepare in the early morning. Brunch is almost lunch, but with eggs. At my house -- whether for Thanksgiving or for the famous Swim Team Brunch every autumn -- it meant quiche lorraine, a huge fruit salad with bananas, oranges, strawberries, apples, and anything else we could throw in, and my mother's yeast coffeecake. For the family we made one or two quiches, but I can still see my mom's cookbook with the handwritten notes in pencil: 1979 4 quiches -- not enough. 1980 5 quiches -- not enough. 1981 7 quiches -- just right. Those swim team girls really knew how to eat.
Over the years I myself have tended to entertain on New Year's Day, or sometimes I'll do Russian New Year's. If it's brunch, rather than borscht and pirogi, I recreate our Thanksgiving Brunch. (Last weekend my in-laws were in town and I made coffeecake and fruit, though we settled for scrambled eggs instead of quiche.) The very process of setting out the eggs for the coffeecake on the countertop to warm up to room temperature reminds me of my mother doing that countless times in our kitchen when I was a child. (For my eggs it is a meaningless gesture, since we keep the house at about 54 degrees. But I do it anyway. Because the gesture holds meaning -- it is a nostalgic gesture evoking my mother's presence.)
My recipe was renamed by my friend Dana. Since I don't ice the coffeecake, it seems more like bread, so she calls it "Angela's New Year's Bread." This weekend I added apples and it was better than ever. Though it's best to have a crowd -- the recipe makes two yeast coffeecakes.
Maybe my daughter will join swim team this year. If she does, I know what I'll suggest.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, mostly because we always used to spend it with some of my favorite relatives. Plus the winter was coming, and we would often have frost in the morning of the big day. And we had lots of lovely rituals -- going to the apple orchard with my uncle to get cider for the afternoon (and hiding the maple sugar candy he would buy us from our parents); charades or skits or "three-men-on-a-couch" after Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother's. We had Christmas stockings and exchanged presents with these folks, whom we would not see in December. And it was also always my birthday weekend, so we would try to figure out ways not to forget that, especially when I was younger.
But most important, perhaps, was the meal my family hosted: Thanksgiving Brunch. Now I can't quite imagine it -- how did we eat an entire brunch (details to follow) before eating a full Thanksgiving dinner? At the time, though, it was a chance for my mother to host and for us to help in the kitchen. We always played touch football in the yard or the park afterward, and then found some way to spend the rest of the hours before going to my grandmother's house.
Recently, of course, the New York Times has declared that "brunch is for jerks." This is not true. Brunch is a way to eat those yummy breakfast foods that you don't really have time to prepare in the early morning. Brunch is almost lunch, but with eggs. At my house -- whether for Thanksgiving or for the famous Swim Team Brunch every autumn -- it meant quiche lorraine, a huge fruit salad with bananas, oranges, strawberries, apples, and anything else we could throw in, and my mother's yeast coffeecake. For the family we made one or two quiches, but I can still see my mom's cookbook with the handwritten notes in pencil: 1979 4 quiches -- not enough. 1980 5 quiches -- not enough. 1981 7 quiches -- just right. Those swim team girls really knew how to eat.
Over the years I myself have tended to entertain on New Year's Day, or sometimes I'll do Russian New Year's. If it's brunch, rather than borscht and pirogi, I recreate our Thanksgiving Brunch. (Last weekend my in-laws were in town and I made coffeecake and fruit, though we settled for scrambled eggs instead of quiche.) The very process of setting out the eggs for the coffeecake on the countertop to warm up to room temperature reminds me of my mother doing that countless times in our kitchen when I was a child. (For my eggs it is a meaningless gesture, since we keep the house at about 54 degrees. But I do it anyway. Because the gesture holds meaning -- it is a nostalgic gesture evoking my mother's presence.)
My recipe was renamed by my friend Dana. Since I don't ice the coffeecake, it seems more like bread, so she calls it "Angela's New Year's Bread." This weekend I added apples and it was better than ever. Though it's best to have a crowd -- the recipe makes two yeast coffeecakes.
Maybe my daughter will join swim team this year. If she does, I know what I'll suggest.
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