A Literary Culinary Journal
Save money on those pumpkin spice lattes by making your own pumpkin spice with this recipe. Click here to see recipe.
Find variations on this spice recipe here.
And if you get a craving for pumpkin pie spice lattes from time to time, here’s a low-calorie version. For an all-out version, whipped cream and all, you might go for this recipe. For a simple version using fresh pumpkin purée, click here.
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by Jonell Galloway
Sweet potatoes are a traditional part of a American Thanksgiving dinner. Every family has its own favorite or traditional recipe. Here’s mine, in all its simplicity.
I love sweet potatoes for their natural flavor and texture, so I simply scrub them really well and bake them, with the peeling on, at 200° C / 400° F until they’re soft enough to eat. The time depends on the time and variety of sweet potato. I then cut them crosswise into chunks (still leaving the peel), put them into a serving dish, and slather them with butter with sea salt, which I buy from my cheesemonger.
No marshmallows, no brown sugar, no maple syrup, just au nature.
It’s interesting to watch Europeans’ reactions to them. At first they’re puzzled, but on their second bite, they usually find them interesting and like them.
Note: If you peel them, they will dry out in the oven.
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I’ve admired Kulsum Kunwa’s wonderful mix of cutting-edge photography and traditional Indian dishes for a long while now, so I am thrilled to have her exhibit on The Rambling Epicure.
Kulsum is an Indian expat living in Kuwait and shares her love for Indian food and photography through her beautiful blog Journey Kitchen, sharing recipes and family stories, reliving the times she lived in India. She brings a little of India everywhere she goes.
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by Renu Chhabra
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.–George Eliot
Fall is a perhaps the earthiest of seasons. Crisp air, fallen leaves, and trees changing hues make it a season to savor before winter sets in. For me, it’s a pleasant reminder of the holiday season ahead. But most of all, fall brings us an abundance of harvest.
The first thing that comes to my mind is pumpkin – the good old orange ball, greeting us at farm stands and grocery stores. Big, small, mini, round, and some not so round — they all whisper, “Take me home with you!” How can you ignore these scrumptious beauties? Even though they are not the easiest of fruits to peel, if you can win that battle, there are endless ways to enjoy them, sweet or savory.
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by Tamar Chamlian
Cranberry harvest in New Jersey in U.S.
It’s autumn, a season when the color of much of nature goes red by default — vineyards, trees, Japanese oaks, Virginia creeper. Houseware and kitchen accessories — and even Starbucks — magically sells everything in red, even the paper cups. Except for cranberries, which are naturally red, and we have plenty of good reasons to eat them in abundance during the two months they are available, not just for their color, but for their taste and health benefits.
Here are five easy ways to incorporate cranberries into pretty much any dish you’re whipping up.
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Prerna Singh runs the award-winning food blog Indian Simmer, which was a finalist in the prestigious Saveur Best Food Blogs this year. Her photos are at the same time sophisticated and rustic, giving a natural yet polished look to the simplest of foods. She grew up in India, but now lives in the U.S. with her husband and daughter.
Prerna uses a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens and photographs in natural light, occasionally using reflectors.
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I am not a lover of sweets, in fact most of the time I dislike them, which is quite a handy thing for my figure.
Still, sometimes, nostalgia takes over. I remember my great aunt’s fresh coconut layer cake, with the layers stacked high like a cathedral, and how the white coconut reminded me of angel’s wings. I remember moist chocolate layer cakes from childhood birthday parties. Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, popular when I was in college. As a little girl, how pretty the name “red velvet cake” sounded. Gingerbread with hot butterscotch sauce on a cold winter’s day, made by my best friend’s mother on Saturday afternoons.
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Prerna Singh runs the award-winning food blog Indian Simmer, which was a finalist in the prestigious Saveur Best Food Blogs this year. Her photos are at the same time sophisticated and rustic, giving a natural yet polished look to the simplest of foods. She grew up in India, but now lives in the U.S. with her husband and daughter.
Prerna uses a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens and photographs in natural light, occasionally using reflectors.
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by Jonell Galloway
Alice DeLuca writes the column Sauce for Thought and the popular website Gf-Zing!, noted for its fine gluten-free recipes and do-it-yourself sauces. She started acquiring cookbooks in 1964 (with a 49 cent paperback) and now has a collection that threatens to overtake her home. She weaves her fascination with the history of food into her writing about modern recipes. She is automatically drawn to any book with a one-word title – Salt, Cod, Tea, Spice, Potato etc. – and proudly wears food-themed earrings.
Alice has trained “on the job” in restaurant kitchens, once as the only American, only female cook in an Indian restaurant. She has cooked over 32,000 meals “from scratch” for her large extended family and friends, and has lived and traveled in many regions of the United States and Europe, adding recipes from the cuisines of France, Italy, India, the American Southwest, Midwest, Northeast and Hawaiian Islands to her extensive repertoire. She translates French and Spanish recipes so that she can bring the indigenous recipes of the Americas to her readers.
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by Rosa Mayland
Colors burst in wild explosions
Fiery, flaming shades of fall
All in accord with my pounding heart
Behold the autumn-weaver
In bronze and yellow dying
Colors unfold into dreams
In hordes of a thousand and one
The bleeding
Unwearing their masks to the last notes of summer
Their flutes and horns in nightly swarming
Colors burst within
Spare me those unending fires
Bestowed upon the flaming shades of fall.
– Dark Tranquility, With the Flaming Shades of Fall
Each season has a significant impact on our behaviour and spirit. All four seasons impart a special mood as well as a certain rhythm to our existence. The explanation for that is very simple: no plant, animal or human being can break loose from the forceful and capricious powers of the Universe to which they are submitted and depend on. We just have to accept the fact that there is a greater plan (I’m not talking about God, but about the force behind the entirety of the cosmos) and that most of the time it completely escapes our understanding. There is no other choice for us than to cooperate with the elements in order to benefit from them. Fighting against them will get you nowhere. Save your vigor and be in harmony with them…
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
