Monastery of Angels' Pumpkin Bread

I always have to read a little before I go to bed. I get all ready - brush my teeth, wash my face, put on my cashmere bed socks (the best birthday present a girlfriend ever gave me) - and then I get in bed, adjust my pillow, fluff the blanket and open a book. If I don't read before turning off the lights, I'm guaranteed to toss and turn for a long while before falling asleep, if I'm able to do that at all.

For the past few nights, I've been re-reading Farmer Boy. I can't tell you how many times I've read it, but we can all be sure it's a fairly high number. The Little House series was my reason for living when I was a child (until Narnia came long and then Anne of Green Gables and Diana Wynne Jones and, oh, let's stop this right now, otherwise we'll be here all day) and when I was at my friend Joan's last year, gripped with writer's block and worry, she pulled Farmer Boy off her shelf and handed it over to me. "Remember this?"

The pleasure I get from going back into Almanzo's world is hard to put into words. Every other sentence plunges me back in time to when I was first reading about how the Wilder men cut and stored ice, packed in straw, until summertime, how Almanzo and his siblings made candy while their parents were out of town, using up all the good sugar their mother warned them not to finish, how Almanzo longed to be given the responsibilities of caring for the family's horses while his father continued to command him to stay away. And, of course, how little, 9-year old Almanzo put away in one regular weeknight dinner what most of us could barely manage on a holiday like Thanksgiving.

None of us (well, as far as I can imagine) are doing anywhere near the amount of physical labor that he was at nine years old. But still. Here's what Almanzo ate on one winter's evening:

1. Sweet, mellow baked beans
2. Mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy
3. Ham
4. Velvety bread spread with sleek butter
5. A tall heap of pale mashed turnips
6. A hill of stewed yellow pumpkin
7. Plum preserves, strawberry jam and grape jelly
8. Spiced watermelon pickles
9. A large piece of pumpkin pie

And then (oh, you didn't think he was done, did you?), the family retired to the fireplace and Almanzo ate popcorn and apples and drank apple cider, and he took such pleasure in this and his family and his life that when I read that bit I always fairly burst with the longing to reach out through time and space and dimension to touch his sweet little self or give him a hug. And also eat a handful of popcorn with a glass of cider in the other hand.

Books, man. They kill me.

We think Thanksgiving is such a busy time and we overwhelm ourselves with grocery lists and cooking strategies and forums on whether to brine or not to brine (actually, this lady doesn't), so reading about how the women in Almanzo's family did that kind of work every day, in addition to churning the butter and curing the ham and dying their own wool and cloth so they could sew their clothes and their own rag carpets, among a hundred other daily chores and duties, well, it's humbling.

The resourcefulness and thrift and sheer doggedness is particularly inspiring, as well as mortifying, of course, because I think nothing of throwing out a stale heel of bread or letting those two stray carrots in the fridge whither into sponginess. While I'm far away from ever wanting to move to a house in upstate New York and become a self-subsistent farmer, what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that Farmer Boy is as enchanting to the adult me now as it was to the little me then.

I made pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving feast (we celebrated on Saturday instead of Thursday), but due to a little, er, mathematical error, I roasted about six times too much squash in preparation for the pie (this one, in case you're wondering, which was once again demolished in one fell swoop, but with this crust recipe, the second half of which I used for this tart, which was eaten even faster than the pumpkin pie).

I froze some of the squash, but with all the Advent tea times ahead of us in the next month (the Germans are big on Advent Sunday tea time), I decided to get resourceful and bake something to have on hand during the next few weekends. Pumpkin bread from a monastery in Los Angeles that sells loaves for $9 a pop seemed like a good place to start.

The recipe hasn't changed since the early 1970's, which is a pretty good pedigree, if you ask me. It's a basic sweet bread or tea cake or whatever you'd like to call it, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg (I also added some cloves) and is quiveringly tender and moist. If you, like me, use Hokkaido (or red kuri) squash, your batter will seem practically fluorescent.

I promise, though, that it will mellow in the oven, turning an agreeable, gingerbread-y brown. The crumb is velvety-soft and fragrant with sweet squash and the spices, while the crust gets all caramelized and toothsome. Some bits of it even crunch. It's a lovely thing to eat. I wanted to add walnuts to the batter, but mine were all rancid, so I threw in chopped pecans, the last of a precious stash from the States, instead. Their earthy crunch is a nice thing to happen upon as you work your way through each soft slice of bread.

My only advice would be to try and make as many loaves out of this one batch of batter as you can. I crammed all of the batter into one 13-inch long loaf pan and ended up having to bake the loaf for an hour and a half, nearly burning the edges. If you bake it in smaller loaf pans, the baking time reduces to one hour.

I let it cool completely, then I wrapped it carefully in plastic wrap and foil and put in the freezer where it'll rest until this Sunday when we have friends over for tea in the candlelight.

But next Sunday, I've already decided, there will be popcorn and apples and cider. And in addition to being grateful for my family's good health and my good fortune in life, I'll be saying a little gratitude prayer for books, my constant companions in this life.

Tell me, readers, what were the childhood books that you loved the most?

Monastery of Angels' Pumpkin Bread
Makes 1 13-inch long loaf or 2 smaller loaves
Original recipe here

3.5 cups of all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1.5 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
2 cups puréed pumpkin or squash
1/2 cup chopped pecans tossed with a spoonful or two of flour

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour loaf pan(s). Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, oil, water and pumpkin and mix well. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until the batter is smooth and there are no streaks of flour left. Fold in the pecans.

3. Scrape the batter into the buttered and floured loaf pan(s). Bake for 1.5 hours or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool the pan(s) on a rack for half an hour before turning the loaves out to cool completely. Wrapped tightly, the bread keeps for at least three days.

Comments

[ashley]

I love it! I've been pining to reread the Laura Ingalls Wilder books recently, too--and have been happily looking forward to the day I can read them aloud to my son (now only 7 months old). I, too, remember being in awe of how much little Almanzo ate... I'm also excited to check back here periodically for more children's book recommendations. Thanks for the lovely post!

[Jessica @ Quirky Bookworm]

This looks delicious!

I loved the Little House books too, and the Chronicles of Narnia, the Prydain Chronicles, almost everything by L.M. Montgomery or Louisa May Alcott. Scott O'Dell, Katherine Paterson, Patricia Beatty, too many to mention!

I've reread the Anne of Green Gables series this year, and loved them. (And noticed how much they ate at every meal!) I'll have to give the Little House books another go.

Or maybe I'll just wait a year or two till my daughter is old enough to listen to me read them, and start the love in a new generation. :)

[Leslie]

Thank you for the lovely, pumpkin-filled post. I saw the words "Farmer Book" and dived right in. I love the food in that book too, and kick myself frequently because I once had a copy of "The Little House Cookbook" but lost it somewhere in my parents' somewhat cluttered house before I could so much as try one recipe. Have you ever read that book or cooked from it? If I recall correctly, it was written by a mother and daughter after exhaustive research, traveling around the country talking to old people and hunting down historic recipes.

[Katrin]

Everything from Astrid Lindgren. Ooh I miss my books! (They´re still in the moving boxes... shame).

[Meg]

I loved the Little House books as well, and I think in some ways I was much more enamored of the descriptions of the minutiae of daily life than I was with the actual stories. (Well, except for the parts with Nellie Oleson. God, I hated her!)

Other than that, the Narnia Chronicles, Little Women, and a million children's/YA fantasy books (Diana Wynne Jones, yes! and Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley and oh, so many others). And, oddly enough, Shakespeare. Mostly the comedies; I would have died to be Viola from Twelfth Night.

I've been meaning to make a pumpkin bread, so if I get my hands on a likely-looking squash, I will definitely try this! :)

[Jacqui]

I've never read Farmer Boy but my sisters absolutely love it, mostly for the food descriptions. One of my favorites is My Side of the Mountain, where the main character lives off the land and makes acorn pancakes! And eats out of a turtle shell! And shares his recipes! So good.

[Meg]

How did you find this recipe? It's history sounds charming & it looks delicious.

I grew up in Minnesota, so I loved the Plum Creek book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's series. I also loved A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

[Melanie]

The food in Farmer Boy is epic! Thanks for the reminder--those books were such a part of my childhood as well. My family recently butchered a hog (per tradition) and I couldn't help but think of Little House in the Big Woods when the Ingalls family killed a pig... but we didn't roast the tail or toss around the stomach :/
I've never tried substituting squash for pumpkin--I will have to give it a try sometime!

[Robin (Hippo Flambe)]

I am also a lover of The Little House books and reread them all obsessively as a child. Every time I read them I would be overtaken by a wave of craftyness and make stuffed dolls and cook. I also adored the Betsy Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace, The All of a Kind Family books by Sydney Taylor, and of course anything written by L.M. Montgomery.

Now as a mother I loved reading the books I loved as a child to my children, as well as some new loves. Now we are busy reading all the Kate DeCamilio books.

[Molly]

This was such a warm, comforting post. I gained this wonderful feeling of contentment as I read my way down to the recipe.

It's funny, because I wasn't much of Little House reader. I was very fond of the All-Of-A-Kind Family series by Sydney Tailor. The books are about a Jewish family at the turn of the 20th century in NYC. I've always considered it the Jewish-American version of Ingalls Wilder. Even wrote a paper about that in college.

Such a nice post. Thanks again for such a nice reading.

[E.]

Luisa -- It's so great that you love Diana Wynne Jones too. I was so sad when she died a few months ago. Her _Lives of Christopher Chant_ was the only book I ever considered stealing from the library when I was young. Luckily, it came back into print when I was older, and I did not have to move into a life of crime. The world is a little bit dimmer now that there are no more new Diana Wynne Jones books to come, but I am comforted by the distinct pleasures of rereading.

[Liza in Ann Arbor]

Big fan of Little House series, but also, and more so, Nancy Drew. I'm sure it's what gave me the travel bug!

[hilda]

OMG. That Farmer Boy passage was one of my absolute favourites when I was a kid. I loved the images of warmth and abundance that book generated and I must have reread it hundreds of times. I also loved the butchering scene in Little House in the Big Woods, culminating in Laura and Mary roasting the pig's tail and playing with the bladder (!) like a balloon.
For anyone that's as obsessed with Little House, and especially the culinary scenes, as I am, the Little House cookbook is a must!
http://www.amazon.com/Little-House-Cookbook-Frontier-Ingalls/dp/0064460908

[Amy]

Oh what a nice post! I was a Little House series girl too--Farmer Boy was my favorite book of the set. Of course this all became overshadowed once Harry Potter came out whenI was in the second grade... yes, good or bad, my generation can certainly be defined by it!

[Victoria]

I don't know Farmer Boy so I will check it out immediately. Looks like it might be appropriate. Books are the best except maybe for cashmere bed soaks, which might be even better. Right now I'm reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and I don't want to do a lick of work; I just want to snuggle on the sofa, drink pots of tea, and read until I'm done. Then I'm going to wish my hair blue.

Happy Thanksgiving to you. I got a good laugh out of that video, but had the last laugh because instead of turkey we ate a delicious pork roast from the meat market that replaced Jeffrey (sigh) at Essex Street. It was an 8-rib roast on the bone with the ribs Frenched. Thanks to James Peterson's Essentials of Cooking, I cooked it completely plain (with just a little salt) at 400 degrees until my Thermapen read 140 degrees. It was perfect.

The pumpkin bread looks really great. Thanks for passing it along.

[noelle {simmer down!}]

For the entirety of my school-going days, we lived too close to school for the bus to pick us up, but far enough so that the walk in winter could be a bear. When the snow and chill were at their worst, I would pretend I was a pioneer like Laura walking to her little one-room schoolhouse and that got me through the tough parts! I love the food descriptions in those books as well.

If you happen to be short of ideas for the remainder of your squash, I could humbly suggest a pumpkin chili I just made. It calls for canned pumpkin puree but you could substitute the squash loosened with a little water. The venison can be swapped for lamb or beef. http://mllenoelle.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/pumpkin-chili-with-venison-the-venison-diaries-part-iv/

[Sharmila]

I'm absolutely not ashamed to admit that my favourite books as a child are still some of my favourite books. Anything that Enid Blyton wrote was avidly devoured and played over and over in my brain. And, boy, do these early last century British authors do justice to describing a meal or what? Sumptuous lunches, generous picnics, over-the-top high teas. My little self growing up in Bombay pined to know what a real scone was like. I repeatedly asked my much older sister who grew up in England about the food she had.
Another childhood fav was My Family and other animals by Gerald Durell, simply one of the best autobiographies ever. The adventure of foreign lands, hearty wit, great food, captivating animals, oh gosh this book just put my imagination into overdrive! I love it, love it, love it and will do so always. Then there's PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, the three investigators, Nancy Drew, oh my I can go on and on...but I'll stop now. Reading is ...everything.

[Luisa]

Ashley - you're welcome!

Jessica - all of those are brilliant! Thanks for the reminder. :)

Leslie - I don't have it, but I just checked on Amazon and it's being sold for as little as 6 bucks a copy...

Katrin - Astrid Lindgren's books were so lovely. I read them all in English, but they are even more beloved here in Germany! Now get thee unpacking, woman!! :)

Jacqui - I was JUST thinking about how the acorn flour was made in that book on Saturday night! Thanks for the reminder of the title. Such a good one.

Meg - Found it in the LA Times archives. Madeleine L'Engle, sigh, I could read her books every day, all day.

Melanie - the pig's tail! I forgot all about the pig's tail!

Robin and Molly - LOVED LOVED LOVED All-of-a-Kind Family. I had all of those. And the Betsy Tacy books! I knew I was destined to become best friends with a Betsy, even then. :)

E. - I couldn't agree more.

Amy - I just had to pick myself up off the floor that you were only in 2nd grade when Harry Potter came out! That is so sweet. :)

Victoria - you might as well start at the beginning with the Little House in the Big Woods. Really, it's worth it. Glad you liked the video! x

Noelle - tough kid! I'm impressed.

Sharmila - I may have read many a great book as an adult (with many still to come, I hope), but nothing - nothing - comes close to the books I loved as a child. They are unsurpassed magic and brilliance and occupy a place in my heart that no other books ever can or will. What you said is perfect: reading is...everything. :) Loved Enid Blyton!

[Shelly]

Oh my, this is spooky (in a wonderful way) I just moved to Germany 1 month ago, read this blog as my now to be "baking in a foreign land savior", and used to live 3 blocks away from said monastery in Los Angeles. I can attest delicious and will make this straight away, hoping that this time I can really dial into how these crazy convection/electric devices they refer to as ovens here work.

[amelia]

Alas, I never got into the whole Little House series. What I did get into and you have now made me curious to reread are the Roald Dahl books. I read eeeevvverything by him. I think Matilda was my favorite.

Anyway, three cheers for books indeed! And looking very forward to yours!

[Elke]

Oh so many good books already listed: the Little House books, My Side of the Mountain, but my absolute favorite was Bridge to Terabithia. I was able to read it to my students in class one year and since they lived in the mountains, did not quite find the freedom the kids were given to roam as exciting as I did as a kid.

The funniest part of that turkey video is that I've taken classes at her cooking school in SF and the past two years we've actually used the turkey recipe that we got there! It's a brine and it's really great.

[dervla]

Well you already said the Chronicles of Narnia, but i also loved the wrinkle in time series as well as anything by Roald Dahl (the BFG!! swoon). I also devoured the Dorrie the witch series by Patricia Coombs. Can't wait to read those to my girls ;)

[Pia]

I could never sleep without my nightly read, and my daughter, who's three needs to 'read' before she can switch her light off at night. Your post had me nodding and smiling, especially at Farmer Boy and the life they led.

[Ariana]

My family spent hours each day reading. I was educated at home, and the first hour of the day was spent with my mom reading to us, the second was for us to read to ourselves. Then after dinner, we'd read another book around the table. The Little House books were some the most memorable, and I reread both "The Secret Garden" and "The Little Princess" until they literally fell apart. Now my five year old has a voracious appetite for stories, and I have a really long list of books I want to read (to both of us.) We flew through the first five Little House books, and are on to Black Beauty, to be followed by Alice in Wonderland. Next up, the James Herriott collection. Can't wait!

[Isabelle]

Wow, I so identified with this post. I also adored Farmer Boy as a child. In fact, I think I liked it better than the other Little House books, though I recently reread them all and fell in love with them all over again. Thanks for bringing back those memories ... I may have to pull Farmer Boy off the shelf tonight too.

[Heather]

Oh yeah. Farmer Boy is just about the very best food porn around. LIW in general really, but the abundance in that book really seals the deal. Thanks for reminding me!

[meg]

My favorite stories? I huddled with Sam in his hollowed-out hemlock tree for "My Side of the Mountain", wandered through the meadows with Kit from "The Witch of Blackbird Pond", and chuckled with Uncle Morris as he playfully confused sullen Maggie in "Behind the Attic Wall". I do believe that this pumpkin bread would make a lovely snack while re-visiting a few childhood favorites. Thanks for the warm nostalgia, Luisa!

[Anne S.]

Hello, I'm new to the food blogging world and stumbled upon yours. I love a pumpkin bread recipe that acknowledges using squash instead of the canned pumpkin from the store. Thank you! Looking forward to making this.

[caps]

...The Twins books by Lucy Fitch Perkins

[Charlotte]

Oh - lovely post. I am not familiar with Farmer Boy. As my mum was English, growing up in Canada and in Germany (Canadian Air Force base tho) my favorites were Black Beauty, What Katie Did, E Nesbit books(the Railway Children, etc), Noel Streatfield books (Dancing Shoes, White Boots, etc), Dr Dolittle, Anne of Green Gables, Sara Crewe, the Secret Garden and on and on. Thanks for the lovely tea cake and a journey down book memory lane.

[rachel @ sweettarte]

True Story: In fourth grade we all had to dress up as someone famous and come into class and do a presentation...and I dressed up as Laura Ingalls Wilder! Bonnet and all.

[amy]

My mom read the series to us as kids. I am now reading (and rereading) the series to my sons. Framer Boy is our favorite. Have you gotten to the pie passage yet? Love it!

[Eleana]

I just read this book again a couple weeks ago and contemplating buying the entire set again, as I don't know what happened to mine. I'm always throwing out facts that I remember from it like "They use rennet to make cheese. I learned that from Little House on the Prarie."

[Hollowlegs]

The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Goudge. The cook is called Marmaduke Scarlett and the descriptions of his food are mouth wateringly good. Seven Little Australians, the Billabong series, the Silver Brumby series, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, Little Women etc, The Magic Pudding (spin it and wish and it transforms into any pudding you desire, the Swallows and Amazons series, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series - and these are just the ones I can remember while sitting at my office desk!

[Abby]

This looks delicious. I loved loved loved the Betsy-Tacy series, and I still reread the books about once a year. Betsy gives me such courage.

It's funny that you mention Farmer Boy, because I've been cooking from The Little House Cookbook and writing about it. Recently I switched over to a colonial Williamsburg cookbook, but I don't think I'm quite done with Little House!

[Adrienne]

I too had a special fondness for Laura Ingalls Wilder (we have the same birthday, she and I!) but I also loved Anne- with-an-E of Green Gables. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I once spent a summer reading nothing but Babysitters' Club books. Claudia hiding mallomars all over her bedroom always cracked me up.

[Annie]

Absolutely the Little House books - especially growing up in Iowa, A Wrinkle in Time and the others, Over Sea, Under Stone, the Bat Poet (slim but so lovely), Sophie's World... and I must stop myself now. Thank you for prompting me to think about all these, Luisa. This little reflection really knocked me out of my work-weary funk!

[Gemma]

Lu thankfully your writing is as good as your maths is bad ;). This time you got a bonus recipe from all your squash. Favourite childhood books were anything by roald dahl - BFG, boy, charlie and chocolate factory, the witches, Matilda etc etc. Best day was going to the library in Kensington and he was doing a reading. Still so proud of my signed book. Of course there was life before dahl.... Love the little princess and the secret garden. Is it awful that i tried little house on the prairie and didn't get it??

[Anna N]

Oh, the Little House books! I still remember being introduced to Farmer Boy in first grade by my reading partner, who was a big grown-up fourth grader. It looked like a very thick, advanced book to first-grade me.

Another book that fed my pioneer dress-up obsession was Caddie Woodlawn (which I liked even better because she was a tomboy). I utterly loved Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet, The Dark is Rising, and all of Astrid Lindgren and Roald Dahl. And Huckleberry Finn, which I read and adored in fifth grade, although I think that's considered too young for it.

[Sharon]

Oh my.....I can't tell you how many times I have read and re-read Farmer Boy during my teenage years. I gotta get my hands on the book again.

[Emily]

I grew up on the Little House series and then on the follow up series about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family (which I'm sure were wildly untrue, but there were particular scenes about eating apples on the banks of clear, cold river banks that still make me want to vaguely move to the Ozarks.) I'll definitely have to check out the Little House on the Prairie cookbook!

My father, ever the 5th grade teacher, also made CS Lewis, Madeline L'Engle, Gary Paulson and My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George all required reading. But my favorite were the times I got to sit with him and read the New York Times. He would carefully drag his finger underneath the text to help me keep my place and to figure out the pronunciation of the 'big kid' words.

But everyone has mentioned such great books. It makes me want to dig in with my Kindle and re-read them all!

[emiglia]

I loved the Little House books as well! The first one showed young Laura and Mary making maple candy in the snow and roasting a whole pig... I always wanted to do that :) Thanks for the reminder!

[Nuts about food]

I pretty much read the ones you listed except Farmer Boy, believe it or not. And then there was the Little Women series of course! I love how all us expats consider our stash of pecans so precious. Maybe we should start a business together??

[Tracy]

I've been thinking a lot lately about the books I read as a child. How I can't really remember all of the titles or the authors. I contacted the library I frequented when I was younger and asked them how far back their records go. Waiting for a response—anxious, really. I'd love to step back in time and read everything I read back then. I feel like it would connect me to a long lost friend.

[Ellen]

Lovely post, Luisa!

[brooklynite]

I absolutely love this post, partly because I too am obsessed with Farmer Boy and remember that meal description so well! Apples, cider and popcorn soon for sure. Thanks for the memory lane trip this Tuesday morning!

[Jaimie]

I *just* invited my neighbor over for pumpkin bread and tea! I shall use this recipe.

[beth grossman]

These Happy Golden Years was the first one I read; it was a gift when I had German measles at 12 yrs old. Then I was hooked and read all the others. The food descriptions were the best.

[Monica]

I *loved* Farmer Boy and only later realized it was for the food writing. His mother's stacked pancakes, dripping with butter and maple syrup, are still dear to my memory.

[Mallory]

Wow I cannot believe how much the color changes after it is cooked. And I totally agree with you about the whole reading before bed thing. Perfect way to end the day!