A couple of holiday recipes from beloved old women

This year has evaporated. How did that happen? I was here and active the whole time (mostly with close family and friends . . . there were significant challenges), but I have not been as present with you, my knitting friends, as I would have liked.

As the year closes, I do have a couple of gifts for you: two of my favorite recipes given to me when I was a young woman by two old women whom I loved. Now I’m an old woman and I want to to pass them on.

   1) The first is for Mrs. Shubel’s Pumpkin Bread. I bake these loaves every year as gifts for local friends and family for Christmas. If you decide to make them, your home will smell of cozy winter days spent next to the wood stove knitting, drinking tea, and nibbling. I’ve been baking them for over 50 years. They’re that good and keep well in the freezer (though not for 50 years).

    2) Then there are Great Aunt Shirley’s Hungarian Moon Cakes! An even older recipe that I have not made in years, but my son texted me yesterday. He needs to take a dish to his office Christmas potluck that is “from his roots.” He’ll come over the night before and we’ll make these together. (And maybe some braised cabbage because savories are always needed at these events). And yes! You must use unsalted butter for this recipe.

I wish you could have known her. Her everyday disguise was as a plump, white-haired “Old-Country” (as in Eastern European) lady in a flowered house dress. But the minute she opened her mouth she blew her cover. She was a vocal Socialist Labor Party stalwart, a force to be reckoned with in politics and in the kitchen. I scanned the 3” by 5” card she typed for me in the 60s and put it into pdf form so you should be able to download it and make it big enough to read.