BOOK/A TABLE - A Pumpkin Party!

“But it was rather remarkable, seeing so many pumpkins or vegetable marrows, whatever they are. They were everywhere, in the shops, and in people’s houses, with candles or nightlights inside them or strung up.”

So says Ariadne Oliver, ranting in Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party. But good gourd! She didn’t say a word about all the many other ways to feature pumpkins—such as chicken pot pie or cheese fondue in a pumpkin, outrageous cheesey-choco-pumpkin bars, pumpkin pie of course, or its modest sister—pumpkin bread.

The recipe I found in the New York Times turned out to be a pretty good roadmap, but not quite the fall flavor-burst I’d hoped for. Pumpkin on its own tends to be bland and the flavor really needs to be teased out, so next time I would double up on the cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger before digging in. Don’t over bake, but do slather with apple or pumpkin butter. 

Pumpkin Bread With Brown Butter and Bourbon
By Melissa Clark
Yield:Two 8-inch loaves

Ingredients
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
¼ cup bourbon (or use water or apple cider)
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 ¾ cups pumpkin purée, homemade or canned (1 15-ounce can)
4 eggs
½ cup olive or other oil (such as canola)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1¾ cups light brown sugar
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cardamom

Preparation
Step 1
Heat oven to 350 degrees and arrange a rack in the center. Grease the insides of two 8-inch loaf pans with butter or line with parchment paper.

Step 2
In a large skillet, melt ½ cup (1 stick) butter over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook until the frothy white milk solids sink to the bottom of the pan and turn a fragrant, nutty brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Brown butter can burn quickly, so watch it carefully. (A tip: You will know your brown butter is almost ready when the frantic sound of bubbling begins to die down, so use your ears as well as your eyes and nose.)

Step 3
In a glass liquid measuring cup, combine bourbon and vanilla. Add water until you reach the ⅔ cup mark. In a large bowl, whisk together bourbon mixture, pumpkin purée, eggs and oil. With a spatula, scrape all the brown butter from the skillet into the pumpkin mixture and stir to combine.

Step 4
In another large bowl, whisk together all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom. Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and stir to combine.

Step 5
Divide batter between the two greased loaf pans. Place them on a rimmed baking sheet and transfer to oven. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Allow bread to cool completely before removing from pan.

Keep the party going! Karen Pierce features Devilled Eggs also inspired by Hallowe’en Party in her fabulous cookbook Recipes for Murder—66 Dishes that Celebrate the Mysteries of Agatha Christie. Read about another Agatha Christie celebration here. 

                                                       

I hope you enjoy some of these fanciful, seasonally spot-on dishes—and if your guests ask who made them, you can certainly take satisfaction in telling them YOU dunnit. 

Happy Hallowe’en!

BOOK/A TABLE - King and I

In a drafty auditorium, while other cast members were taking a break from rehearsal, I sat glued to one of the theater seats reading Stephen King’s The Shining. It was around Hallowe’en, I was about 12 or 13 years old and our local theater group, the Garrison Players, was putting on a musical revue called Encore, Encore!. I don’t know where any of the other performers had scuttled off to, but I do know some moldy dead woman was climbing out of a bathtub at the Overlook Hotel. 

I was alone in that huge auditorium, well, just me and the old woman, when suddenly a wild gust of wind blew in from the lobby, a door slammed shut, and I jumped about a foot. I spun around, on the defensive, but no one was there. It was just the wind...and I knew that, but as I settled back down in my chair and returned to The Shining, I knew too that I’d just experienced the power of a great book.

By opening night, I was duly recovered. Curiously enough I’d been enlisted to kick off the show (in knickers) with ‘I Whistle a Happy Tune’ from The King and I—about the King of Siam, not Stephen.

There’s also the character of Wendy in The Shining, the hapless (certainly not helpless) wife, exploring the vast hotel kitchen, looking for something to make for dinner. To me, the whole scene has such a creepy feel about it, like a trip to the morgue...

“When she opened the big walk-in freezer the light clicked on automatically. The chill made her gasp. The shelves were neatly stacked with lamb chops, roasts, chickens, frozen vegetables.” 

But let’s take a moment to think about those roasts in a different (and certainly more appetizing) light: here I present a simple, best ever off-oven roast beef that I’m sure you’ll take a shine to.

And don’t overlook the divine Henry Bain sauce!

Off-Oven Roast Beef
Adapted from New York Magazine

Serves 4 to 6 as a main course, with leftovers for sandwiches

Ingredients
1 beef roast, like top, eye or bottom round, approximately 3 pounds
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
Red-pepper flakes to taste

Preparation
Remove roast from refrigerator. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil and red-pepper flakes to create a kind of paste. Rub this all over the roast. 

Place beef in a roasting pan or cast-iron skillet, fat-side up, and put in oven. Cook undisturbed for 5 minutes per pound.

Turn off oven. Do not open oven door. Leave roast to continue cooking, undisturbed, for two hours.
After two hours, remove roast from oven. Slice and serve alongside, ideally, a watercress salad, some skillet-fried potatoes and a small tureen of Henry Bain sauce.

Creamy Cranberry-Cherry and Pistachio Spread

Inspired by a layout in Martha Stewart’s Halloween 2024 issue, I made this appetizer off the cuff for a recent party, tailored to what I thought would taste good. Alter the proportions to achieve the perfect combination of tingly, creamy, tart, and sweet that you desire. 

Creamy Cranberry-Cherry and Pistachio Spread
Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients
1/3 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/3 cup chopped dried cherries
1/3 cup chopped pistachios
6 oz crème fraiche
6 oz goat cheese

Method
Mix crème fraiche and goat cheese together with a fork to soften, add fruit and blend. Spoon mixture into a ramekin, top with pistachios and serve with crackers alongside OR spread fruit mixture onto endive leaves and sprinkle with pistachios.

BOOK/A TABLE - Vampire Weekend Cocktails

“There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half restored. For the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey. The cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath. The mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran down over the chin and neck.” From Dracula, by Bram Stoker.

We all know what Dracula likes to drink. Here we offer a cocktail less revolting, more fun and refreshing, and certainly in keeping with the spooky season: the Pina Ghoulada! But never fear—with a red syrupy rim, there will be blood (in ghastly appearance anyway) during the Hallowe’en weekend soon to rise upon us...!

 

Pina Ghoulada
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Special Issues, 2000
Serves 10 to 12 eight-ounce servings

Ingredients:
FOR THE “BLOOD”
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon red food coloring

FOR THE DRINK
20 ounces pineapple juice
1 can (15 ounces) cream of coconut
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup orange juice
10 ounces good-quality rum

Instructions:
Pour the corn syrup in a shallow bowl. Dip a toothpick into the food coloring, and stir a very small amount into the syrup to combine. Hold a glass by the stem, dip rim into the syrup mixture, and turn glass, coating entire rim. Turn the glass upright, allowing mixture to drip down sides for an eerie effect. Dip the remaining glasses. Set aside.

Whisk together drink ingredients. Place 2 1/2 cups ice in a blender, and add 1 cup drink mixture. Blend until smooth; add more pineapple juice if mixture is too thick. Repeat with remaining ice and mixture. Carefully pour into prepared glasses; serve.

*BONUS* Frozen eyeballs for your highballs! Click here for eye-popping garnishes from thismamacooks.com that will give your martinis a particularly ghoulish “look.”

                                                 

BOOK/A TABLE - The Chowder Society

 

Revenge is a twice-told tale: the pursuit of it, and the aftermath that follows. Throw a spiteful ghost into the mix and things begin to get rather complicated...

In Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, set in a wintry New England town, a collection of four old men (a.k.a. members of the Chowder Society) are haunted by their past and get together once a month to tell each other—yes, ghost stories—in an effort perhaps to absolve themselves of the grave accident they once caused. Let’s just say it doesn’t exactly work out for the poor fellows.

“Somberness had not been evaded: he saw again the skeletal branches thrusting through the brilliant leaves, the implacable bloodied face of the girl on the film poster, and remembered that is was his turn to tell the story at the Chowder Society meeting that night.”

I won’t reveal any more about the book, preferring to tell you instead about this recipe for New England Clam Chowder from Manhattan’s Fulton Fish Market. But like the stories in Ghost Story, this dish is meant to be shared.

Chunky New England Clam Chowder
Adapted from fultonfishmarket.com
Serves Four

Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter
8 ounces thick-cut bacon, sliced crosswise
1 large onion, finely diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
4 small white potatoes, peeled and diced
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 ⅔ cups whole milk
2 cups fish or chicken stock
2 bay leaves
⅔ cup heavy cream
1 ½ pounds fresh clams, rinsed
½ cup dry white wine
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Melt the butter in a Dutch oven set over medium heat. Add the bacon and fry until golden and crisp, 6-8 minutes; remove to a plate lined with paper towels and cover with aluminum foil.

Add the onion, celery, garlic, potatoes, and a pinch of salt to the Dutch oven, sweating until starting to color, about 10 minutes.

Whisk in the cornstarch and cook for 2 minutes; whisk in the milk followed by the stock in a slow, steady stream until fully incorporated.

Add the bay leaves and bring the mixture to a simmer; cook steadily until the potatoes are very soft, 15-20 minutes.

Discard the bay leaves. Whisk in the cream; bring the chowder to a simmer and season to taste with salt and pepper; keep warm over very low heat.

Place the clams in a large saucepan set over high heat. Add the wine, cover the pan with a lid, and cook until the clams have steamed open, 3-4 minutes; discard any that don't open.

Drain the clams and leave to cool for 3 minutes. Pick the meat from the shells; stir the picked clam meat into the chowder along with the parsley and reserved bacon.

Serve straight away for best results.

 

BOOK/A TABLE - Mad About the Melt

In anticipation of Hallowe’en, I'll be featuring a few frightening reads and recipes all this month—kicking things off with a tribute to the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Read on, if you dare...

Back in 1980, when my friends and I were in 7th grade, we did the impossible. At least, our feat was something that would be considered quite unfathomable to the teens and tweens of today (and I daresay more than a few parents)—we sat, glued together in front of a television in the dark and, uninterrupted by any distractions, watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in all its jaw-clenching entirety for the first time.

I will always remember that night and appreciate that my friends agreed to walk me the few blocks home afterward, certain as I was that although it was only a movie...only a movie...a knife-wielding madman was nevertheless hiding somewhere in a bush along the way.

In Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho, Norman offers Mary some sustenance upon her arrival to the Bates Motel. “The kitchen was a complement of the parlor—lined with ceiling-high glassed-in cupboards grouped about an old-fashioned sink with a hand-pump attachment...and the long wooden table bore a welcome display of sausage, cheese and homemade pickles in glass dishes scattered about on the red-and-white checkered cloth.”

I think it’s safe to say that Bloch was a fan of the hyphen.

Anyway, in the movie version, Norman gives Mary some kind of uninteresting sandwich instead of the aforementioned display, when what he really should have served is the outrageous tuna melt from the Golden Diner under the Manhattan Bridge. I can’t help but think things might have turned out differently for all involved if Norman had only cut into this sandwich instead of...well, never mind. 

Golden Diner’s Tuna Melt
Yield: 4 sandwiches
Recipe from Sam Yoo
Adapted by Alexa Weibel

Ingredients:
For the Tuna Salad
⅓ cup mayonnaise (preferably Hellmann’s)
¼ cup minced bread and butter pickles
1½ teaspoons yellow mustard (preferably Frank’s)
Scant ½ teaspoon distilled white vinegar
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 (5-ounce) cans yellowfin tuna packed in water, drained (all of the water squeezed out)
⅓ cup minced red onion
⅓ cup minced celery
½ teaspoon Tabasco (or to taste)
Salt

For the Sandwiches:
6 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
8 slices rye bread (or other sandwich bread)
Salt-and-vinegar potato chips
6 slices American Cheese

Preparation
Step 1
Prepare the tuna salad: In a medium bowl, combine the mayonnaise, minced pickles, mustard, vinegar, paprika, garlic powder and onion powder, then slowly drizzle in the olive oil with one hand while whisking the mixture with the other. Add the drained tuna, red onion and celery; fold to combine. Season to taste with Tabasco and salt; refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
Step 2
Cook the sandwiches: Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat. Meanwhile, lightly butter one side of each slice of bread. Working in batches as needed, add the bread to the heated griddle, buttered-side down, and divide the cheese among 4 slices of bread, tearing cheese to fit in a single layer (1½ pieces per slice of bread). Cook until the cheese is melted and the bread is crispy and golden, about 4 minutes. Transfer toasts to a large cutting board for assembly.
Step 3
Divide the cold tuna mix among 4 slices (about ½ cup each), schmearing it to cover each piece from edge to edge. Add a handful of chips on top and close the sandwiches with the other slices of bread, toasted-side up. Using a serrated knife, cut sandwiches in half diagonally and serve while the bread is warm.

P.S. Speaking of Hitch...it’s Hitchcocktober at Village East by Angelika (181-189 2nd Ave, NYC) when they will be serving up a smorgasboard of Alfred Hitchcock’s finest films on the big screen every Wednesday in October, finishing up with Psycho on the 30th-31st. Go to angelikafilmcenter.com for more info.

Thanks to Rachel Vanni for the tuna sandwich pic from The New York Times!