To continue the pumpkin theme from last post, serendipitiously. I have in my hands, my wandering eye having caught the book’s spine over there across the room a moment ago while in the middle of a rather lengthy call taking a bit too long to end, Hockney’s Alphabet. Mine is not the $500 signed first-edition depicted via the link.
This is a 1991 British book (Faber and Faber) that benefited (100% of the proceeds) the Aids Crisis Trust, in which Hockney illustrated each letter of the alphabet and authors such as Douglas Adams, Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, William Boyd, Anthony Burgess, Margaret Drabble, T.S. Eliot, Patrick Leigh Fermor, William Golding, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Kazuo Ishiguro, Erica Jong, Doris Lessing, Norman Mailer, Ian McEwan, Arthur Miller, Iris Murdoch, Nigel Nicolson, John Julius Norwich, Joyce Carol Oates, V.S. Pritchett, Craig Raine, Susan Sontag, Paul Theroux, John Updike, and Gore Vidal wrote about the letters. Some illustrations are available at the first link.
Here’s (Nobel Prize winner, of course) Doris Lessing on P:
P is for pumpkin, because I am making pumpkin soup, one of the joys of autumn. You need a good pumpkin that has had real sun, for the taste. You can’t use English pumpkins if we have had a bad summer, but most years they are all right. You make a puree of it. Then you sweat chopped onions in a little butter. You can use a good chicken stock, but some people think a stock deadens the subtle and earthy pumpkin taste, and prefer water. A little cinnamon, just enough ginger to tang it, and then, when you serve it, a dollop of sour cream on top, sprinkled with finely chopped parsley.
P is for roast pumpkin because it is a wonderful accompaniment to roast meats, or as the basis of a vegetarian meal, since it is rich and filling. It should be cut in generous slices, and each slice well scored and sprinkled with butter, salt, a little sugar, cinnamon, a dusting of coriander and cardamom. This is put into a medium oven till the surfaces begin to carmelize.
P is for pumpkin the way the French do it, very finely diced and then seasoned with parsley and finely chopped garlic — quite a lot of garlic — then dredged with flour until each little cube is coated. This is spread in an earthenware gratin dish that has been well wiped with olive oil, and the dish goes into a quiet oven, about 350 degrees F for 2 to 2 and one-half hours. It should then have a dark brown crust, but underneath the pumpkin is making a rich puree.
P is for pumpkin fritters — but we all know how to make fritters. They are delicious, tangy and seductive. And, of course, very fattening.