31 October Halloween

Ok, Ok, we may all be a little stressed, and I find, when stressed, the taste buds are the first to go. I crave salt, sweets, fat, whatever, when I’m a little stressed only because I can’t taste more subtle flavors. When the stress lifts, so too the embargo on flavor. That’s what may have happened this week with my poor Persimmon pudding. They looked and smelled so wonderful, the persimmons giving gently to my tender yet unrelenting hand. The sweet amber jelly gave forth, lightly floral and sweet and Pacific and everything. It went into the pudding. Cinnamon, butter, lemon juice, zest, and the usual binders and leavening agents. It was almost burned and boring and had no flavor in particular whatsoever. It was sad, because the persimmons promised so much, yet fell short of the goal. Unlike the apples and cranberries that went into tonight’s crisp, a crisp worth remembering, and savoring for years, no decades, or centuries to come.

Fresh cranberry apple crisp with cinnamon, nutmeg, oats, flour, butter, salt, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and toasted almonds. Good times! What an exceptional little Fall trifle!

And, there’s a chicken soup on the stove, the night is chilly and the wind, well, it’s not strong, but it’s menacing.

A stock that simmered for hours.