quiltersmuse.com Blog

This is the cover of the new cookbook, Pumpkin, Pumpkin: Folklore, History, Planting Care, and Good Eating, just published by Anne Copeland of Lomita, California

Truly, this is the most amazing cookbook I have ever seen! Throughout the 129 pages you’ll delight in the beautiful photos and art quilts, all related to pumpkins, shared by Anne’s fiber artist friends from around the country and around the world. The book is an international effort!

Anne Copeland is interested in so many areas of life, it is hard to keep up with her. She holds a university degree in Archaeology with a minor in English. She is a freelance writer and researcher, and a certified appraiser of quilted textiles. She has done much to promote art quilting in southern California and is a fiber artist herself. Her “day job” consists of teaching special needs children, as a paraeducator in California. She loves animals and has even worked for a veterinarian!

Annie Copeland, the author

Moreover, Anne loves the color Orange, and everything about pumpkins, including their shape and texture. She says that she takes a lot of time in choosing just the right ones to buy that will please her aesthetically. She lets virtually none of the pumpkin go to waste, even saving the seeds, piercing them with a needle, drying them, and adding them as components of necklaces. She is so frugal, and caring about the environment, one could mistake her for a Yankee!

Anne is not the only one who loves pumpkins. My son, James Gorham, has enjoyed carving pumpkins since he was a teenager. This photo is in front of his house, 2008.

This current venture, a Pumpkin cookbook, has been many years in the making and reaches far beyond just offering recipes. The history of the pumpkin is explored as well as the folklore and traditions surrounding pumpkins. She describes the various names of different pumpkins and the sizes to which they grow. She discusses their nutritional value, reveals how to store them in various ways and how to prepare them. Only then does Annie offer an array of mouth-watering recipes from soups, salads, breads, biscuits, sauces, condiments, drinks, baked goods, and more!

My grandson, Patrick, loves pumpkins, too. Here he is shown in 2008, picking out a “Patrick-size pumpkin.”

This wonderful cookbook can be downloaded from Kindle, in which case, I don’t believe the photos will be in color. My suggestion is to order the slightly more expensive CD that will be mailed to you, via snail mail. We printed out the pdf format of the book and bound the top of it with a coil. The pdf format tells you the page you are currently viewing, at the top of your computer screen.

There are 129 pages, and we printed the book, single-sided, and laminated the covers. To keep the ink jet colors from running, we plan to cover the pages with a piece of heavy plastic that has weights on two opposite ends and is see-through. I will have to investigate who carries the product. We have had ours for years. Check your local cooking stores.

Last year, we went to the Pumpkin Festival in Jackson, NH. There are photos of Pumpkin Head people, elsewhere on this blog!

For more information about ordering this book that you didn’t know you needed until you saw it … go to Anne Copeland’s blog. There, you will see more ordering details and a Paypal button. I guarantee you that you won’t be sorry!

Autumn is a great time of year, here in New England, and part of our delight is in seeing pumpkins growing in fields, and piled up after the harvest. Anne Copeland has created a one-of-a-kind pumpkin cookbook that is unequaled! Do yourself a favor. Order it today! The beauty of an e-book is that it can be printed, one page at a time, if desired! To contact the author directly, please write to: anneappraiser@yahoo.com

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications

I am happy to say that my husband not only “brings home the bacon,” he cooks it, too! In fact, he cooks a lot more than bacon, and he has started a new blog to reveal all of his cooking secrets.

He hopes to add new items, daily, with wonderful photos to tempt you to try the recipes for yourself. New England regional cooking is a bit different than elsewhere, and was always based on what could be grown or raised, here.

Here is the link: Jim’s Cooking Blog

Edie Clark, long time writer for Yankee Magazine, gave a wonderful talk about New England foods tonight. The lecture was sponsored by the NH Humanities Council and the meeting in the Congregational Church Hall in Hopkinton, New Hampshire attracted many people. She discussed Fanny Farmer and her famous cooking school in Boston; Julia Child of PBS fame and author of books about French cooking; and Hayden Pearson, an early New Hampshire writer of cookbooks. We thoroughly enjoyed hearing about typical New England dishes, and at least one of them was new to me: the fish, Shad. These series of lectures are free to the public and very worthwhile.

Jim’s baked beans and brown bread, typical New England fare.

On the way home, we saw tiny goslings with their two Canadian Geese parents, finding food on a Hopkinton lawn.

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications