"AppleCake" news and stories

Green tomatoes. Photo: pink_fish13, Flickr.

• Green tomatoes can become a delicious late-summer soup.
• A look at the food and fine dining of Portland, Maine, as it -- brace yourself -- gears up for frost and winter.
• At the living museum Strawbery Banke in New Hampshire, Rosh Hashana is celebrated 1919-style.
• French Languedoc wines have improved greatly over the last 25 years.
• Michael Pollan writes an op-ed piece about eating and U.S. health care.
• Food editor and developer of products like Cran-Apple juice Sylvia Schur passes away at the age of 92.
• Recipe Redux goes back in time and whips up a Huguenot Torte from 1965.
• The foods that wowed when noted chefs David Kinch, Alexandre Gauthier, Pascal Barbot and Michel Bras got cookin' on Sept. 14.
• The Minimalist makes Thai-style crab cakes.
• The classic tourist spot Tavern on the Green files for bankruptcy -- a look into why it fell.
• Restaurants: Gus & Gabriel Gastropub "fails to achieve even its low aims," Stumptown Coffee Roasters whips up exceptional espresso and Queens' M & T Restaurant offers elegant simplicity and great eats.
• Food Stuff finds purr-worthy knives, a new food processor and apple cake.
• New York's openings and closings and dining calendar.

I still have about 25 apples left from the apple picking episode of Slashfood in the Kitchen that Scott and I made a couple of weeks ago. I've done a pretty good job of using them up, what with the apple sauce, apple crisp and apple muffins that have passed through my kitchen recently. However, I'm eating at least two a day and they just aren't going away.

I was flipping through my grandmother Bunny's old recipe card file a little while ago and stumbled across the card you see above. I can see her sitting at her old typewriter, making up that card for herself, knowing she didn't need to add any specifics other than "Mix goodies in left column; add dry stuff. Bake 1 hr. at 350." I do believe I will have this one baking before the day is out.

• What is Country Captain?
• A new store in Somerville sells only cupcakes! (And here's more about cupcakes from the Globe's Dishing blog.)
• An interview with cookbook editor Judith Jones.
• A look at Adam Roberts' (The Amateur Gourmet) virtual book tour.
• The secrets to a great bundt cake.
• Mapping the genome of the pinot noir grape.
• This week's recipes: Evan's Lama Curry, Martha's Paprikash, Greek Salad, Tomato Soup, and Spiced and Glazed Apple Cake.

Who says there is nothing great about British food! If the diverse range of British food bloggers is anything to go by the UK is really leading the food world, from historical English recreations, thoughtful comment through to recipes from the Ottoman Empire...

1. Cooking With Ginger has a great rant on what to eat, or rather, when what we are supposed to eat one day is countered by some other revelation the next.
2. Anne of Baking For Britain may not be one of the most frequent posters, but by heck laddie her writing is well worth waiting for. I love the mix of historical facts and adapted recipes. The latest compares homemade Sedgemoor Easter Cakes and a pack purchased from M&S.
3. Eating Leeds has AT LAST become a proper Englishman in actually liking custard - and seems to be a master at making it too.
4. The English Patis has posted one of those 'I must make this' recipes, a Spiced Apple Cake.
5. Fiordizucca Goes English is keeping it local with a Nettle Tart. Do nettles grow anywhere outside Europe, it's something we should all know?
6. Sqeezeweasle writing as Gastronomy Domaine got a mention in Olive magazine, but didnt boast about it like I did!
7. A new blog to me - Rustic - details how to recreate Hunkar Begendi and Tas Kabab which is basically lamb and aubergine from her Turkish homeland's Ottoman past.
8. Finally Johanna has been out partying and plying welcome party-people with Tomato & Pesto mini-Galettes.