As far as I was concerned, that trip explained a lot.

On other trips, I had seen magnificent gardens in England. Some had grand vistas, some wide borders within different floral “rooms”, one leading to the next, some were “landscape gardens”, where seemingly natural pathways wound through structured views. And there were the famous “Cottage Gardens”. They were more personal, more intimate, and their plantings looked more casual, though they were very carefully planned and organized.

Then we went to Ireland. There the gardens showed a strong English influence. They were beautiful, too, but somehow, were different. I couldn’t figure out how gardens sharing the same general climate, many of which displayed the same plants, could be so similar and at the same time so consistently different in feeling.

On the fourth day, we viewed an Irish Cottage Garden. Same enclosed setting, same plants as I had seen previously in English gardens, same general structure… almost. Our guide pointed out one huge difference. Every so often, there was a tall spike of yellow flowers rising from a large rosette of course, grey-green furred leaves. It was a Mullen. Apparently, gardeners would allow a Mullen to self-seed and pop up at random in an otherwise structured flower bed. So much for human control!

For me, this epitomized the famous “touch of the Old Nick” I saw and valued so much in my family. It was an herbal example of playfulness, of welcoming the unexpected (since it will be there, like it or not), of joking around. I loved it. It made me think of my beloved uncle Graves, and how he would sit back at the dinner table sometimes, laugh and burst into full-throated song. We had been taught not to sing at the table, but… what the heck.

So this St. Patrick’s Day, I will sing, I will laugh with friends, and I will embrace my Mullens, where-ever they pop up. But I won’t drink green beer.

This is the rationalization I use as I serve myself a big slice for breakfast.

Strawberry – Yogurt Pie is a beautiful dessert for Valentine’s Day.

½ recipe Basic Pie Crust
1 ½ cup plain whole milk yogurt
1 cup small curd cottage cheese (not fat free)
1 pint strawberries
¼ cup mild honey
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Line a medium bowl with an 18” square of clean, white Indian gauze or with several layers of cheese cloth. Pour the yogurt into the bowl. Gather the corners together, tie a strong string around them, and hang the yogurt to drain for 4 hours.

Make one half of the Basic Pie Crust recipe as directed. Roll the dough out in a 13” circle and line a 10” pie plate with it. Prick the entire surface with a fork, then fold up and crimp the edges decoratively.

Place a sheet of aluminum foil over the crust, and press it out to conform to the pan and hold the crust in place. You can pour in pie weights or dried beans if you like, but I find that the aluminum foil holds the crust against the sides of the pan well enough. Bake the crust at 375° for about 25 minutes, or until golden. Remove the pie plate from the oven and allow to cool.

Pick out 2 perfect berries and set them aside for garnish. Cut the stems off of the rest of the strawberries and slice them into the cooled pie shell.

Place the drained yogurt in a clean bowl. Force the cottage cheese through affine sieve, then add it to the yogurt. Stir in the honey and the vanilla. Pour the filling over the berries in the pie shell.

Place the pie in the refrigerator and chill for 3 or 4 hours.

Garnish with the reserved strawberries and serve.

I dreamed I will hunker down in front of the fire and catch up on reading the pile of books I have been stocking up.

In my fantasy, the cat will be in my lap, and Sophie Dog will be curled up on her bed at my feet. Maybe I’ll finish knitting that sweater I started a couple of years ago. HA!

Instead of kicking back, I’ve been kicking into high gear. I think I’m introducing more new things this month than I have in many, many years.

And it’s really fun.

I find that one idea inevitably leads to another, then another. I am a very lucky woman, since my “job” is also what I best love doing. And the “perks” are great.

I may have a hard time justifying buying myself a big expensive toy. However, since I simply had to up-grade my camera so that I could take better pictures of all 8 of the new Cookie Stamps, and both new Shortbread Pans, I went for it. It’s great.

Please do go check out the pictures of the new Meadow Flowers and Carousel Shortbread Pans. My grandson, Paul loves the Lion from the Carousel Pan best. I fluctuate between the silly Bird and the Horses.

I’ve been a little late getting up the pictures of the series of Heart Cookie Stamps and the British Isles Series.

I wanted to have everything done by January 1, but “the best laid plans…” Of course the fact that Sophie Dog is a Lab and a serious opportunistic eater didn’t help anything. She ate almost all of the sample cookies I had baked to photograph. Back to the kitchen I went to bake more cookies she didn’t get.

Have fun. Stay warm.

Lucy

P.S. If you love Carousel animals as much as I do, and if you are in New England at some point, be sure to visit the Shelburne Museum, in Shelburne, Vermont. They have an absolutely staggering collection of carved wooden carousel animals. I have spent hours there, drinking in the incredible artistry involved in these figures for an amusement park ride, something which might be considered frivolous by some.

A few years back, I decided that so spread out, many of the town’s elderly probably needed a little stimulation off and on. They needed a little contact, a little something out of the ordinary to perk their minds, a little love. Valentine’s Day would provide a real opportunity.

With the collusion of our post-mistress, I gathered the names and addresses of all 39 of the town’s elderly.

Then I baked up 39 pretty little heart-shaped molded cookies, using heart cookie stamps and cut-apart heart cookie molds. I placed each cookie in a plastic sandwich bag, and I tied each bag closed with a ribbon and a cut-out paper heart tag which read “Be my Valentine!” or “From your Secret Admirer”. I swore Sue to secrecy, and we delivered the cookies.

The recipients LOVED it! The cookie was sweet, but the mystery of where the cookie came from was sweeter still. It drove everybody nuts. They knew that Sue had been part of the plot. They tried to pry the information out of her for months, to no avail. We never told.

So make someone smile and wonder why they just got a Valentine kiss; where did it come from? Make some cookies. Drop anonymous little gifts on the desks of all of your co-workers (include yourself!), put them in teachers’ “in” boxes, take a basket to a nursing home. Share the love.

Your shortbread pan will bake shortbreads that are perfect for Valentine’s Day, Weddings, Mother’s Day, or any time you want to let someone know that they are dear to you.

Check it out: Shortbread Pan Website

½ recipe Basic Pie Crust
7 or 8 large, tart apples. Cortlands, Northern Spy, MacIntosh, Jonathans, Granny Smith are all good.
Juice of ½ lemon
½ cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut in small pieces
½ cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup all purpose flour
½ cup rolled oats
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Roll out the pie crust in a 13” circle and line the bottom of a 10” pie plate with it. Fold up the edges and crimp them decoratively.

Peel and core the apples. Slice them thin. Toss the slices with the lemon juice, then spoon them into to prepared pie shell, mounding them gently.

Put the flour, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is the size of small peas. (You can do this part in a food processor, if you like. Just a few pulses will do it.) Stir in the rolled oats. Work the dough with your hands until it starts to clump together.

Sprinkle the topping over the apples, covering them evenly and completely.

Bake the pie in the middle of a preheated 375° oven for 40 – 50 minutes. Poke a small pointed knife through the topping to test if the apples are done. They should feel soft, but they should still offer a little resistance. This pie should not be cooked so long that the apples fall to pieces. The topping will be a toasty brown.

Serve the pie warm or at room temperature.

When you knead bread dough for a long period of time, you are developing the stretchy gluten fibers. This is exactly what you don’t want to do with pie crust. That would result in a tough, bread-like crust.

You can make a great crust by hand using a pastry blender or two knives, or with a food processor. The basic technique is very much the same.

Recipe for a 10” double crust pie:

2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup cold butter PLUS 4 Tablespoons cold solid shortening, cut into small pieces
OR ¾ cup total cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons ice water

By hand: Place the flour, salt, butter and solid shortening in a medium sized bowl. Using a pastry blender or two table knives, cut the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles very course meal. The little pieces of butter should be about 1/8” across.

Dribble in 5 Tablespoons of ice water and mix quickly using your fingertips. The dough will look like a bowl full of moist crumbs. Turn the dough out on to your counter and firmly press it into a low mound. Using a wide knife or bench scraper, cut the mound in half, pick up one half, place it on top of the other half and press down to reform the flattened mound.

The dough will still look terribly crumbly at this point and will look very unpromising. Don’t worry. Keep repeating the cutting, layering and flattening process until the dough comes together into a solid mass. Since you have not been pulling and stretching the dough, it won’t have developed the tough gluten in the flour, and it will bake up into a delicate, flaky crust.

Cut your lump of pie dough in half and press down on each of the halves to flatten them out slightly. Wrap the two pieces of dough in plastic or waxed paper. Refrigerate them for 10 to 15 minutes. Roll the pie dough out on a generously floured surface, using a floured rolling pin.

Proceed as directed in whatever recipe you are using.

Using a Food Processor: Place the flour, salt, butter and solid shortening in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 4 or 5times, or until the fat has been cut into pieces about the size of peas.

Pour 5 Tablespoons of ice water down the feed tube. Process just until the dough starts to look damp and clump together. This should only take a few seconds. Don’t over-do it.

You may want to add a tiny bit more water if you think the dough is taking too long to come together.

Turn the dough out on to the counter and proceed as described in the instructions for making pie crust by hand.

You can store your dough in the refrigerator for later use. If you do, just be sure you let it sit at room temperature for a little while to soften before rolling.

I love pies. I make them all the time, but it wasn’t until quite recently that I noticed that my pie baking had definite patterns; Rhubarb in May, Apple in September, Maple Pecan in the long days of December.

Never mind the fact that I always freeze quantities of rhubarb; somehow I don’t think to use it until the new crop is just starting to poke through the soil. Never mind the fact that I can buy apples and pecans at the grocery store at any time of the year. My pie baking seems as firmly regulated by some internal clock as does my waking and sleeping.

In this book, I have put together a calendar of pies, with a different recipe for every month of the year. Of course you can use them whenever you like. Just because my family gets Lemon Meringue in April doesn’t mean that yours can’t be eating Classic Apple Pie.

I’ve also included a tried and true recipe for Basic Pie Crust, and four recipes for savory pies that know no season.

I hope you come to enjoy making pies as much as I do. You may find that you develop pie patterns of your own.

Lucy

The gatherings seemed huge, with more cousins and relatives than I could then count.  I remember sitting on the steps in Aunt’s house with all of the other little kids, singing my heart out, trying to remember all of the words, enfolded in what seemed to me to be the essence of Christmas.

Now, as a much older woman, Christmas still brings anticipation, joy and family gatherings, but it is bitter-sweet as well.  The loving gatherings are smaller. 

I remember all those dear ones that are gone.  I miss the fullness of the family, but I feel incredibly blessed that I can hold all of those memories in my heart.

This year, I celebrate the love with which I am surrounded.  I celebrate that my darling son Dan will this year be marrying Michaela, his long-time love and partner. 

I celebrate that my wonderful son Alan will be marrying Maria, that the two are expecting a second child this summer to join their son, Paul Graves, and that the family has plans to move to the Concord area in New Hampshire.  My cup runneth over.

With love and best wishes for you and your family, this time of year and always,

Lucy

Nice to hear from you, Lori:

Lots of people ask about cookie molds.  I really feel that is a body of work that is complete for me, a closed chapter.  I have also been asked if I would sell the designs so someone else could produce them.  That feels even worse.

I truly believe that the reason people have responded to the molds the way they have is because they represent a very personal product in an increasingly impersonal marketplace.  They are a little piece of me.  They are tools that people can use to create something personal for them to give to someone they care about.  It would be a violation of core beliefs to past the molds on to some company that wouldn’t understand this, just to make money.  I destroyed all of the master molds to make sure this could never happen.

The good news is that almost everything shows up on e-bay sooner or later.  Also, I would like to dedicate some portion of my blog as a place where people could post the designs they are looking for.

May I post the part of your letter that asks about the cookie molds?  So many people have the same question that I think they might be interested in why there will be no more cookie molds.

Enjoy the autumn.  I hope you aren’t quite as soggy as I am here in NH.  We’re growing moss on our moss.

Best,
Lucy

Go check it out at www.shortbreadpan.com. There are all kinds of recipes and pictures that I never before distributed, and a gallery of current designs with a link to find a store where you can get one. Roxanne the web genius has done it again!

Note from the web genius:

Now that both websites are live you need to get back and forth between them. I have put a link to the “Other Website” at the bottom of each page. So if you are on the shortbread pans site click the “Cookie Molds Website” link at the bottom of the page and vis versa.

We have various links on the brownbagcookimolds.com that will take you to the Shortbread Pan Website such as “Find A Store” and links in the right-hand column of pages.

You can always get back to the blog by clicking the “Brown Bag Blog” link in the navigation at the top of the page.

Here’s a recipe for breakfast on a nippy fall morning using apples. Actually, these pancakes would make a nice supper alongside sausage patties and green beans (I love green beans) or a salad.

I hope you enjoy them…

Apple-Gingerbread Pancakes

This recipe makes about 6-7 pancakes, or enough for 2 moderately hungry people.

Make them with the sliced apples in the batter, as described, or have them without, with maple syrup and butter and applesauce on the side. A blob of yogurt or sour cream instead of butter isn’t a bad idea, either.

Also good with pears, fresh or fried lightly in butter with a pinch of salt and big pinch of sugar, or apples, treated likewise. Apricots sound good, too. Play around.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch cloves
3 Tablespoons molasses
1 large egg
1/2 plain yogurt or buttermilk
1 Tablespoon melted butter
small unpeeled apple, sliced very thin (I use the blade side of a box grater to make the slices)

Mix all of the dry ingredients in one bowl, and beat all of the wet ingredients together in another.
Mix the dry into the wet. Stir.
Stir in the apple slices, if you are using them.
Cook on a medium-hot buttered griddle until the bottoms are brown and the batter is bubbling.
Flip, cook, eat.

Note: Watch the bottoms of the pancakes carefully so they don’t get too dark before the centers are
cooked. All the molasses tends to make them brown fast.

But that’s just the start. Each pan bakes 16 delectable shortbreads; 8 small diamond shaped pieces decorated with a pine tree and 8 triangular pieces, each with a tiny reindeer running and leaping. These cookies are just the right size to go into a gift basket of holiday treats, or to include as part of a feast. Not too big, not too little, just right. Just right too, for a little sweet with an after dinner cup of coffee.

As with all our pans, Norwegian Woods comes in a sturdy gift box with a recipe leaflet with complete instructions and recipes for making Classic Shortbread and 5 delicious variations. All Brown Bag Shortbread Pans are made in America.

I got in touch with my buddy and web genius (her term) guru to ask if she could add a Classic Cookie Stamp tab to my site. She nearly choked.

I was told in no uncertain terms that technology had moved on so far that diddling with my antiquated format would probably melt her server. She opted for a complete re-do from the ground up.

Now, my expertise and comfort zones encompass technologies that include pencils, clay, plaster, and my high quality electric drill.

The reason I learned how to use a computer at all was so that I would have access to Spell Check. Suddenly Roxanne wanted to catapult me into the world of multiple tabs, rotating galleries and interactive blogs.

I love it!

It is easier than I ever dreamed to post information, introduce new products and interact with fans without worrying about getting spammed. We can talk… we can ask each other questions, we can share ideas and stories.

Since the new site is still under construction, I may need to ask for photographs of cookie molds I don’t have to include in my Collectors’ Gallery. People who are looking for a particular mold to add to their collection can post their request. This thing opens up all sorts of possibilities.

So be in touch.

Lucy Natkiel