User post: Fall is here, a signal for different things to different people. For me-cooking.

I've always loved the fall. When I was growing up in Southern California, the temperatures were usually mild all year long and the only time I could "feel" fall in the air was in November, especially after one good rain. Then the morning air had a crispness to it that really woke me up. It woke up my senses and made me feel as if I'd been asleep for a time. My fondest memories were trips to the store in preparation for holidays. Or well, at least it was holiday time and I can always relate November, crispy air and certain stores.  We used to drive into Long Beach and go to a store chain. I call it a chain because they had three stores in a row on street corners, each its own a department with differing items -- such as paints and crafting. I cannot recall the stores' names...maybe "Dooley's"? But I loved to go there. It seems this was about the only time we'd make the trip and there'd be some special toy in the window that caught my attention. I loved it. And usually it was only my Dad and I who went, and I would talk him into buying doughnuts on the way home. We loved our jelly doughnuts!

In the fall, October held Halloween, but for me there were no special memories, just a mundane walk through the neighborhood to collect candy and try not to get scared into performing a trick.

November, that was probably my favorite month, once the air got that crisp feeling.  I used to love Thanksgiving when our family/ies got together. My mother's mother, and my father's mother, both single, enjoyed each other's company and we always had them both over. Many times my father's brother and sister would join us. My aunt had four kids of her own and that was a crowd. My mother's older brother lived back East so we rarely saw his family. Her half brother lived with my grandmother so he was always around. (The one whose motorcycle I learned to ride). 

When we didn't have a crowd at our house, we gathered at one of my grandmother's houses. If at my paternal grandmother's, then her other children and their families were there. If at my maternal grandmother's, then it was my brother and parents, Grandma and my uncle.  Boy that grandma could cook. She made the best turkey, mashed potatoes (from scratch) and gravy. My favorites--meat and potatoes--wet with gravy!  Fortunately, when she died, I received her cookbooks.

Christmas was another time we all gathered. That was my mom's birthday. (She passed away Oct. 23, 1996).

I married in 1975 and after my husband was discharged from the U.S. Navy, we packed up and headed to his home town in Georgia. There, I met his family (definitely "not the Waltons" he would tell me), but a sizable family.  Both parents, two older sisters, and a younger brother. Dozens of aunts and uncles on both sides. His mother was a farm girl, one of 12 children born over a period of about twenty years. (yes-whew). 

My mother-in-law only cooked from scratch. At holidays and my husband's birthday (before we moved to GA.) she would send packages of home baked goodies. I remember while he was over seas on tour, I remained at my parent's home. She sent my husband a package for his birthday and then at Christmas, she sent us a package.  That was their tradition, home baked goodies. It smelled so good when I opened it, but I didn't know what anything was.  My Dad and I dug right in, sampling this and that. I did note that a few things tasted familiar, like I had tasted them when I was young. 
 
I was not much of a cook when I moved in to my in-laws home. I was only 19. My experience in cooking was limited to a few "Home E." class recipes and I could follow my mother's spaghetti recipe and her chili and a few others.   

It didn't take long for my mother-on-law  (Let's just call her Mom C) it wasn't long before she got me and the brother's wife, who seemed to visit a lot, into the kitchen to learn to cook. I listened intently and tried to learn. Eventually I learned to make biscuits (by eye), that is to eye the amount of ingredients rather than actually measuring them out. I learned to make gravy and grits, cut a whole chicken apart-discarding the back bone and fry up the chicken. Mom C shared some of her recipes with me, such as the certain cake she baked my husband every year. Each year she made him a "brown caramel cake," which was basically a plain cake (1-2-3-4) 3 layers cut in half to make 6 and hand "plastered" together with a frosting that tasted caramel-like. Brown sugar and butter. Most of her recipes called for at least one whole sitck of margarine -- if not two or three.

She used to have goodies waiting on the kids when they came home from school. One got her homemade potato chips, another loved the chocolate layer cake (white cake with chocolate frosting).

But the fall used to pretty much bring on her baking and cooking moods. Come the crispness of fall or a cool October morning, she would get to mixing things in the kitchen -- at all hours actually. She'd make brown caramel (panoche') candy, chocolate balls, fruitcakes (we yankee daughters-in-law didn't like it). She'd make cakes (all three layers), cookies, fudge, popcorn balls. And she taught us her recipes and techniques.  Okay, well, not EVERYTHING, my yearly attempts to copy her brown caramel cake always came up short. Long after her death, I continued each year to try and make her brown caramel cake for my husband's birthday and every year it came up short. Finally, one time I tried using buttermilk in the recipe and it came out tasting a lot closer to what we remembered it tasting like.

My husband's birthday is very near and this year instead of attempting to perfect my technique and succeed, I've discovered new cake pans. So  this year his birthday cake will be my attempt at the art of cake decorating: a football helmet shaped cake.  I used a coupon and bought first a football shaped pan and then went back for the helmet after I told him about it.  That's another story, back in 1978 I bought my Wilton cake decorating book and learned  stuff, but mastered nothing.  I know how to use my tips and I've got new frosting recipes and more confidence.

And for all these years after gaining knowledge of cooking and enjoying the sweets of my labors, I love to dig into my grandmother's cookbooks and make some of my favorites or look to other books of hers for reference, like when I make a new pickle. Grandma had a Kerr book on pickling-preserving-freezing, it was complete. And the recipes are good, albeit old-fashioned and from scratch. It's easier to use pectin than to  cook fruit into jelly stage successfully, but I  love to try the recipes.  I also use many of the recipes that my mother accumulated (after she finally learned to cook). My favorite recipes (that I use) of Grandma's are her oatmeal cookies filled with cooked dates and her peach butter recipe (which is a summer thing). Lots of work, but so yummy. My mother's recipe I love the most -- she got it from my cousin, Mary. It is for pumpkin bread. As a teen, I used to scarf that down! I make it every Thanksgiving. As for Grandma's cookies, it requires rolling and cutting and being lazy, I usually do drop cookies. But now that I have more time I recently tried it. Making the dough and filling a day ahead works great. Friday morning I made 2 1/2 dozen, and having reduced the amount of brown sugar, they tasted great. I look forward to this season and the challenge of keeping my weight down. Happy fall.