MikeMooreMedia

Debbie Moose, Cookbook Author, Food Writer 09.12.24

Transitioning to fall foods and flavors, good things to look forward to; cookbooks, Our State.
www.DebbieMoose.com
Facebook.com/Debbie Moose

Duration:: 17m
Broadcast on:: 12 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Mike Moore Media. Time to check in with our friend Debbie Moose in Raleigh, cookbook author, freelance food writer. You've probably seen her stories in our state and other publications. Oh, and she's on the line right now. Hey, Debbie. Hi, how are you? You know, I'm doing great because we've got some cooler days and getting a hint of fall. Isn't that nice? I'm so glad when the weather changes over. I get about August. I'm tired of just about everything about summer, my clothes, the heat, except the food. Oh, yeah. You know, this time of year in September, you know, it's a little sad to see the peaches and the fresh corn and all those things sort of coming to an end. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Watermelon. Oh, my goodness. You know, it's like, you know, well, you know, yeah, they've been so good. But, you know, there's things to look forward to in the fall that aren't covered in pumpkin spice either. And don't any of y'all start with me? I can't say in that. Oh, my goodness. And that's a case of mine. Oh, I'm with you on that 100%. Anybody out there who is a pumpkin spice fan, you do you? Okay, you're welcome to have all of mine. But I don't need pumpkin spice dog biscuits or Cheerios, anything. Any of the other stuff I saw the story yesterday. Yeah, you can have my portion too. You're gonna have my share. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, there's, it's, it's a little bittersweet this time of year. It's sort of that transitional period and it gets cool for a few nights. And you think I'll put on some soup and then all of a sudden it's 85 degrees again. Yeah. And it's a little, it could be a little challenging. Think about what cooked this time of year with. Like I said, the summer things waning, the summer vegetables waning. But there's a lot, a lot that I look forward to like the squashes, the sort of acorn squash and things like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's anything like that that you look forward to or you enjoy. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm kind of thinking here what we do enjoy. But, you know, one thing you've already mentioned there, I do love soups. So, you know, that's kind of nice when you get into soup season, I guess, for sure. Yeah, I know that some people eat soup, hot soups all year round, but I just can't manage to do it when it's, you know, 99. No. But, but it's not squash. I haven't seen any of those yet. I probably will when I'm going to go to the farmer's market here in Raleigh copy this afternoon and I expect there may be a few. They can be a little later. The acorn squash is a little earlier. And you begin to see a few. Scupronons begin to show up. My father tried to grow scupronons. I grew up with the Salem in one year. He planted, he built an arbor and put the scupronons on it. And it got really pretty, you know, with all these vines on it. Every time he tried to pick some of those birds would get to him first. Oh, no. But one year he managed to get enough and he decided he was going to make wine out of it. He'd never done anything like that. He bought one of those wine making kits in a box to be able to get. Yeah. And, you know, follow the directions, you know, put everything in there. And then I was in the kitchen with him when, you know, the time period was up and he opened it up and, and tasted it. And it was sour. Oh. Now, I don't know if it was just more sour than he liked or he wasn't a big wine drinker or what, but he thought it was too sour. And this was probably when I was in high school. Before I could stop him having been in chemistry class, he had added more sugar to it to make it sweeter. Well, chemistry, all that sugar did was it started to yeast up again. And it made that yeast invigorated. And we sat there and watched as every bit of the liquid in that container bubbled out into the sink. Oh, my goodness. It was like a geyser. Oh, faithful. So after that, he just picked them up and ate them. That was kind of a disaster. Get there before the birds. Yeah. Oh, that's it. His first and last experience was scuppernong wine. First and only trying to make wine. Yeah. Yeah. I had it. I had an uncle. And I remember this. I was probably not even a teenager, but I remember he had one of those big harbors and scuppernong vines. And, you know, just eating those. I got a flashback now and it's a good memory. Now, I had once made scuppernong jam. To be honest, I've never been a huge fan of scuppernong, so I was teaching a cooking class. I can't remember where it was now, but they specifically wanted to make scuppernong jam. And I knew how to make jam. And so I, you know, got a recipe and, you know, did it for, you know, they all worked on it. And the Girl Scouts thing was, you know, some kind of Girl Scouts thing was the girls all worked on it. And it was really very good. And it comes on a lovely color. Better. The trick with it. Better than what your dad tried with the wine. Yeah. Much better than that. It stayed in the jars. It didn't bubble out. It's always good. Yeah. It was, it was really good. The trick with making scuppernong jam or jelly is getting all those little pits out in the skin. Because there's a lot of, you know, they're not very big grapes, and they've got all those little pits in there. Yeah. I believe, if I remember correctly, I haven't done it since. And I think what I did was I got a food mill. A piece of kitchen equipment that has like a different size strainer on the bottom, and it has a crank on the top. And you put whatever you're straining in there, and then you crank that, and it pushes the material through there. And anything that's hard or large stays in the mill, like the pits and the skin. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you cook, I'm trying to remember, I think you cook the, cook it down, cook it a little bit first, so it's soft, and then you put it through there. I mean, that worked. I remember that was a tedious process. I'm very happy there were a lot of Girl Scouts there that I could pass that job off to periodically. Yeah, sure. But it made, it made good, did damn. So I was, I was, I discovered I was redeemed themselves a little bit to me, because I might have never been crazy about it. But they are the native great here, and there is a thing to look at and to try because they are a North Carolina native great. But that's something else. I bet they're out. They might be out there now when I go this afternoon. They probably are. And apples, of course. You know, I don't know what it is for a time. I wasn't eating apples. I don't know. You just kind of have your food tastes changed. Yeah. Now I'm craving apples, and I've been buying them individually. But you know, some of those apples can be expensive. So I found a good bag at a good price the other day at the supermarket. And they're galas, and I do like gala. And so, yeah, so I'm eating a lot of, I do like apples, for sure. And that's a good fall thing. But you know, I was at a visiting someone the other day, and I said, you still got that persimmon tree out back. And he said, yeah, it's right over there. And I said, well, you're going to have the first frost for persimmons. Is that right? For the really good, is that the thing? I don't know, because when now I'm east of you, but there's a persimmon tree on a route that I walk here in the neighborhood. So to get to the community garden I work in. And people will go up there and pick the persimmons off that tree. And they're already falling off all over the sidewalk. I have to dodge them. Oh, OK. And that's supposed to be when there were riders, when they're sort of falling off. You don't want to try to pick them before they're right. Right. That's something that, I mean, I'll eat it sometimes if it's something where persimmons is in a restaurant. But that's piggy. Getting pigs to make cams is enough work, but getting persimmons would be important. Yeah, I know my grandmother used to make a really wonderful persimmon pudding. And I probably, as a kid, I probably didn't know what it was. I was like, oh, persimmons, I probably wouldn't eat that. But she was such a good cook anyway. And I have a fond memories of her persimmon pudding. So I thought, I had this bright idea that I would go get some persimmons. You've got to get a lot to make up anything. Yeah. And I've rarely seen you be able to buy them. Oh, I know. I never have. Yeah. But I thought I'd get them, and I'd find somebody to make a persimmon pudding. Dreaming, probably. That'll never happen. Well, who knows? You've got all your wonderful listeners out there. Hey, somebody, make my, make poor all my carapens. Yeah, that's right. I'll put that out there for sure. Okay. But all of these things probably have one thing, have something in common. There are all the sort of heartier flavors. The sort of, the flavors that go well with spices. Like the hard squashes do, apples do, of course, persimmons. They all go well with those kind of warm, fall spices. Yeah. And that's kind of what they have in common. I mean, those heartier, those deeper flavorings come in after the summer when, you know, when I've got fresh corn and tomatoes and things like that, I just might sprinkle a little fresh herb on top or just salt and pepper and go with that. And let it be, you know, as delicious as it is. But then the fall, you want something a little bit more. And I guess that's another sign of the transition. And you talk about all of a sudden moaning things. My husband's a big apple eater. I'll eat him sometimes, but I wanted a snap. You know, the afternoon, the one thing I wanted more than anything else on the earth was apple spices dipped in peanut butter. I don't know why I wanted that. That sounds good. Yeah, that's always good. But I sat down and got me some peanut butter and apples. Aaron did that. I haven't wanted that. I mean, that's like something you want in elementary school. I hadn't wanted that in a long time. Oh, that was good though. I'm sure. Well, as my mother used to say, you get a taste in your mouth for something. That's true. You really do. Yeah. I've been to say that to go in the kitchen. I got a taste in my mouth for that. Yeah. I've been craving carrots lately. There must be some kind of deficiency or something. A carrot craving. I don't know. Oh, you want something crunchy. Yeah, I do. Yeah. It does mean people say that your body will tell you what it needs. Sometimes I think you just get a taste in your mouth for something. Yeah. I think you're right. I think your mom said it best right there. Yeah, like I am ready for the more spice flavors. I'm kind of ready for that. You know, the spicy flavors. Oh, yeah. You know, some spice, apple, something, some ginger and cinnamon on a baked acorn squash. There's a lot of butter and honey on top of it. Yeah, really healthy. Or, you know. The baked sweet potato. A cup of tea with some kind of spice. And I'm kind of ready for that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And we love you. I know. You were good when we had you. Yeah. We will see you next summer. Yeah. I was sad, like you said earlier, when the peaches were gone. And, gosh, we ate a lot of peaches. Yes. But we've got good things to look forward to. Absolutely. There's always something good to look forward to. Yep. And, you know, I'm a big fan of pumpkin pie. I do love a good pumpkin pie. Yeah. Well, we've had our differences on that, Mike. Yeah. I know. That's true. Yeah. But how about sweet potato pie? I love you. Sweet potato pie. What? Sweet potato pie. Apple is more of the thing over here. But, you know, you do you, Mike. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I'll do whatever I can. Okay. Well, to each his own, as you say, but we both agree on one thing. Well, we agree on more than one thing. Certainly. Yeah. The pumpkin or all the, the, what was that we were talking about earlier? The, it's owned everything. You know, the pumpkin spice. Pumpkin spice. Yes. Yes. Please. I think I'm done there. Thank you. Everybody else can have that. Y'all can have that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for preparing us for a good, good food. Good things to come into in the new seasons. You know, we'll, you know, and I think we've talked about fruitcake before. So, you know, we've got fruitcake. We have. And I still am a fan of fruitcake. Yeah. Uh-huh. I do love a good fruitcake. Yeah. In fact, one of the senior groups is having a trip coming up to southern supreme fruitcake factory. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of them do that here this time of the year. So, yeah. So we've got that to look forward to as well later. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, we'll, we'll watch out for you in, in our state for some of your continuing stories there as they all come together. Yeah. I have a couple stories in there next year. And, you know, holidays coming up. My southern holiday book is, is available for you from UNC class. So, it's my buttermilk book. Yeah. That's right. And not really to think about that Christmas shopping. Um, we could talk about recipes anytime. I enjoy talking about recipes. I know. Um, you know, if any of your folks listening out there want to get in touch with me, they know how. You want to tell them how? Sure. Well, uh, you know, I would say go to your, uh, Facebook page, Debbie Moose. That works. Or my website. Debbie Moose.com. And you can email me at Debbie at Debbie Moose.com. Okay. All right. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm looking over my notes here and I don't, I guess I, yeah, make sure I know how to get in touch with you. Yeah. Um, well, thank you, Debbie. Always good to talk to you and, um, uh, hope you have a good transition here into the fall season and, um, we'll talk again next month. Well, thank you so much. And I hope you have a blast at Riverfest. I hear that's really great. I'll have time to come next year. And I know we should plan on that, uh, you, you plan so far ahead with all of your, um, your writings and articles, put that on your calendar for next year. I'm going to. I'm going to. Thank you, Debbie. Appreciate it. You too. All right. Bye bye. That's our monthly podcast with Debbie Moose and Raleigh. And yep, uh, please check out her, uh, Facebook page, Debbie Moose or website, Debbie Moose.com. And you can find her contact information there. And yes, you mentioned a couple of her books, uh, from UNC press and, uh, oh, that would make, um, some nice Christmas presents right there for sure. Uh, so, um, check out, uh, Debbie Moose and see what she's up to and all of the good things that she's doing in her kitchen. And thank you for listening to, uh, to this podcast and, uh, enjoy the, uh, the fall, uh, flavors that, uh, we are going to, uh, be, uh, having soon. [BLANK_AUDIO]