It wouldn’t be autumn in my world without plum cake. Pflaumenkuchen, Zwetschgenkuchen, Zwetschgendatschi … whatever you want to call it, it’s a very common autumn dessert or snack to coffee-time in southern Germany. This time, I made one a little different, with the addition of cardamom. I love cardamom too and the combination with the tart italian plums is fantastic.
Pie
Sometimes, your lunch is just so good that you want to share it with the entire world, like today. This is what happens when the garden gives you an overload of fruits (cherry tomatoes are fruits, right?); the thyme is from the garden too. This was amazingly delicious and even the pix came out better than usual. Not bad for a Friday!
Pie for breakfast? I maybe posting this in the morning, but it was actually dessert last night — Browned Butter Maine Maple Kentucky Bourbon As American as Apple Pie. Complex but somehow very simple. Neither the maple nor the bourbon took center stage. For once, my lattice top didn’t crack. Overall, very pleased.
In the mood for pie but can’t be bothered to make a pie crust? Yes, that means it’s cobbler time — dessert these evening with ice cream. Puffy vanilla batter on self-picked strawberries from Russell Orchards and rhubarb from the Farm Stand. It was a little overly juicy, but that wasn’t really a problem. 🙂
Switching gears here for a minute from All the Proteins!! Week, I wanted to show you these “overthought” hand pies. You see, today is of course Juneteenth. I must admit that until I attended grad school some 25 years ago in someplace other than New England or Germany, I never really paid much attention to a whole lot of Black history — a fault that I will admit and have hopefully rectified. I’ll spare you the details of my grad school work except to say that it was eye-opening. In addition, I think that most of you know that I find cultural meaning and shared common beliefs through food — yes, for me, almost everything comes back to the food, whether it be Independence Day or Christmas. I did some more details research on the food traditions of Juneteenth, which is often celebrated with a menu of red foods to represent the perseverance of the enslaved. No, these Blackberry Peach Hand Pies aren’t red – there will be red on the menu soon as Strawberry week starts on Monday (and I have taken the day off to go Strawberry picking) — but they are a combination of ideas: Pies, and hand pies, a commonality between North and South, though these are inspired by a recipe from a little Georgia bakery. Peaches are common to both GA and TX. And I will always go back to Breaking Bread with family and friends as an important part of community building.