By October, and the blog has added a new dimension to the writing life — the communal dimension, the sharing, the reading of other contributors whose voices are different from mine but whose understanding of food is the same: food is love made edible, food is memory made consumable, food is the story told through the mouth rather than the eye. The community is the kitchen expanded — not one woman at one stove but many women (and men) at many stoves, all writing about the cooking, all sharing the stories that the cooking produces.
I have been writing for RecipeSpinoff with the particular pleasure of a woman who has found her audience — not the anonymous reader of a book but the specific reader of a blog, the reader who responds, who comments, who writes back. The writing-back is the conversation that books do not provide, and the conversation is the gift.
The Librarian's Table revisions have begun — Catherine's notes, as precise as before, the editing that takes the good and makes it true. The revising and the blogging happen simultaneously: mornings at the desk for the book, afternoons at the computer for the blog. The two writings are different in form but identical in substance: they are both about food and books and life and the particular intersection of the three that is my life.
I made pumpkin soup — the October dish, the fall signal, the soup that says the season has turned and the turning is the life and the life is the soup. The soup was for the blog — both eaten and written about, both consumed and shared, the double purpose of every meal I now make: to feed and to write, to nourish and to narrate.
The soup fed the afternoon, and the blog post fed the evening — but October always asks for something more, something to carry the season forward into the next morning’s revision session. These apple peanut butter cookies came out of that same fall restlessness: the harvest apple as insistent as the turned season, the peanut butter grounding it the way the writing grounds the living. I baked them for the community that writes back, the readers whose conversation is the gift — something to share, the way the blog itself is something shared.
Apple Peanut Butter Cookies
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 3/4 cup peeled and finely diced apple (about 1 medium apple)
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat your oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Mix the base. In a large bowl, stir together the peanut butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until smooth and fully combined.
- Add wet ingredients. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until the mixture is uniform.
- Add dry ingredients. Stir in the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg until just incorporated.
- Fold in apple. Gently fold in the diced apple, distributing the pieces evenly throughout the dough.
- Portion the dough. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Flatten each ball slightly with the tines of a fork, pressing a crosshatch pattern into the top.
- Bake. Bake for 10—12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the tops look barely golden. The centers will appear slightly underdone — that is correct; they firm as they cool.
- Cool. Allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 118 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 85mg