What’s a small moment from your past that you still think about years later?
I still remember my college roommate Ann making an actual meal in our sophomore apartment kitchen circa 1984. I had never done any real cooking growing up, and freshman year we ate every meal in the dining hall. It was a weird feeling to have a kitchen of our own. We were like…adults…and we could be vegetarians if we felt like it.
If you were in college in the 80s and had even a passing interest in eating less meat, you probably owned The Moosewood Cookbook, or borrowed it from a roommate and never gave it back. Mollie Katzen’s hand-lettered, hand-illustrated pages felt more like a friend’s notebook than a cookbook. Everyone made the same few things: a big pot of soup, something with lots of cheese and broccoli, and a very ambitious attempt at a dinner party for six. I still have mine.


Their subsequent cookbooks, including “Enchanted Broccoli Forest,” were huge bestsellers, especially among young, liberal, vegetarian types. I bought “New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant” when it came out in 1987–the year I graduated college. I still have that one too.
Yesterday, my husband asked for my old “Apple Cheddar Cheese Pie” recipe, so I dug it out. It was in the New Recipes cookbook.



It came out great. The layer of cheese under the streusel makes this pie feel more like an actual meal. I would not add ice cream to this, but truth be told, my husband did.




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Fun memories.
And I’m totally copying that pie recipe. I love cheddar with my apples!
🍎
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Nice! He said he used only 1/4 c flour in the streusel topping like the recipe says. I can see from my pencil note that I used more (like a cup) last time I made it. I think more flour might make the topping a bit more crumbly. 🍎🧀😋
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