French Prune Plums

French Prune Plums

The past several years we’ve enjoyed the ultimate u-pick experiences when our dear friend Otti invites us to help harvest fruit from her orchard. Her late husband and her son planted several varieties of fruit trees over the years, some choices based on research and others on a whim, such as “the name sounds interesting.” To put in perspective the challenge of choosing a particular fruit tree to plant, there are over 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States alone with more being developed every year. There are over 300 varieties of peaches, and while there are fewer plums, choosing a particular variety can still be daunting. About three years ago Otti and her son planted two French prune plum trees. They were in full production this year and we came home with about 20 pounds of plums.

Verne picking plums

What to do with 20 pounds of plums? A few years ago during my Master Food Preserver (MFP) days I would have said “Make jam!”. I haven’t kept track, but over my four years in the program I must have canned over a thousand jars of jam and given most of it away. Bottom line…we just don’t eat that much jam and when we do eat jam we have our favorites, like multi-berry or strawberry fig. Plum, plain as well as various combinations, such as plum-rosemary, ranked well down the list. After eating a stomach-ache full of the little prune plums, I decided eating 20 pounds of any fresh fruit was not a good idea.  They needed to be either frozen or dehydrated. When we arrived to pick we found Otti busy in her kitchen making a Prune Cake, a favorite as a child growing up in Germany. Her recipe begins with a German shortbread (Muerbeteig dough) that is pressed into a 9”x13” pan, topped with the fresh halved plums, and baked. Otti’s recipe calls for a whopping 4-1/2 pounds of plums. Hard to imagine? Here’s a picture of her cake in progress with about 4 pounds of the “little soldiers” already lined up on the pastry.

Otti's Plum Cake in progress ("little soldiers" standing at attention)

The idea of making four of her Prune Cakes and using up all the plums we’d picked was appealing. But before starting I decided to see what other ideas were available in my cookbooks as well as online. I Googled “German prune plum cake” and got an amazing number of results. The most interesting recipe was included in an article published in the New York Times. The recipe was called the Original Plum Torte or Marian Burros’ Plum Torte and is considered “the most famous recipe ever to grace the pages of the New York Times.” It’s a simple recipe that goes together quickly. The only change I made was the quantity of fruit. Afterall, my mission was to use up the majority of the 20 pounds so I increased the number of plums from 12 to 32 (whole plums, 64 halves). Even with that change I was able to place them flat and side by side on the batter. No “little soldiers” for me. About a dozen cakes later I’d used up the majority of the plums. Each cake was cut into four pieces, wrapped and frozen to later be reheated and served at breakfast or in the evening as a dessert. Did I mention we absolutely love this plum cake? It’s not overly sweet, reheats beautifully, and will be enjoyed through this next year each time reminding us of a warm fall day picking prune plums in Otti’s orchard.

Marion Burros’ Plum Torte (I prefer to call it, Otti’s Plum Cake)

1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 pinch salt

¾ cup sugar

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 large eggs

32 French prune plums, pitted and halved lengthwise

2 teaspoon of sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon, mixed, for sprinkling on top last 5 minutes of baking

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

2. In the bowl of a standing mixer or handheld beaters, cream the sugar and butter until very light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.

3. Add the dry ingredients and the eggs all at once, and beat until combined, scraping down the bowl once or twice.

4. Spread the batter into an 8 or 9-inch spring form pan or 9” square pan. Arrange the plum halves, skin side down, on top of the batter in concentric circles or side by side (8 halves across and 8 halves down).

5. Sprinkle the batter and fruit lightly with the sugar-cinnamon mixture last 5 minutes of baking.

6. Bake the torte (cake) for 40 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake in its pan on a rack for 10 minutes, and then release the spring and let it finish cooling just on the base. If baked in a square pan, let cool for about 20 minutes and then remove. Once it’s cool, serve, or you can double-wrap the torte (cake) in foil, put in a sealed plastic bag, and freeze for up to one year. Note: to serve after it has been frozen, defrost completely and then reheat for 5 to 10 minutes in a 300-degree oven.

I have seen very similar recipes to this that use blueberries in place of the plums. Great idea for those of us who pick blueberries in May or June and then freeze them to enjoy throughout the year.

Verne picking blueberries June 2019

Joyce picking blueberries June 2019

LIfe's Simple Pleasures

Verne enjoying Lauren's back deck on her new home in Beaverton

I started keeping a journal (nowadays called a Blog) in 2012. It was called StixChixConnected and I posted updates monthly for my handful of readers, who were also fellow quilters. Its purpose was to keep us “connected” as well as provide inspiration by sharing our current quilting projects and other creative endeavors. About two years later I started a blog for my other interest, food, and the two gradually were combined into the one blog, Moser Good Eats and Good Times. Just as I’ve had two blogs in the last eight years, I’ve also had two computers for about that same amount of time. Thanks to Jana, I now have a single computer that’s smaller and faster than the previous two combined. The past few weeks have been spent transferring documents and photos to my new laptop and learning to use OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage, for managing my files and thousands of photos. It’s a big project and one that has sparked a lot of memories. It’s made me realize the importance of documenting memories with not just photos, but also words. So often Verne and I together try to remember an event and uncertain about the specifics, we resort to reading my blog. Most of my posts are not about life-changing events, just our day-to-day experiences. Like the robins that made a nest in our hanging plant this past summer or about making granola with puffed cereal shot from a gun. Anyway, looking at old photos and reading old blog posts has made me realize that while most of our life experiences are not particularly significant or even interesting to others, they are as important to us as we make them.  And, taking time to place photos in an album with a few words or share photos and stories in a blog memorialize experiences and raise them to a level of importance. Bottom line…I’m thankful we’ve only experienced a few life-changing events of which I’ve written about over the past eight years and will happily go forward writing blog posts about our simple daily life experiences.

A special memory of Maria and Sally at Stix Retreat in January, 2008

Verne and I are perfectly well-matched in so many ways with one of the most important being our enjoyment of cooking and eating good food. We subscribe to several cooking magazines, own a couple hundred cookbooks, take on-line MasterClasses on cooking, and follow our favorite chefs online. We can go months (and sometimes do) without cooking the same recipe twice. We not only love cooking, but we love food sourcing. Grocery shopping is not a chore for us, it’s an adventure. For us, local is anything within a hundred-mile radius, and we have been known to drive that distance to Shop Local. Kitchen cookware and gadgets also hold an attraction. Until a month ago, I’d resisted the pull of the multi-cookers (they include a variety of functions, like pressure cooking, slow cooking, steaming, etc.) which have become popular over the last few years. Afterall, we own a complete set of All-Clad cookware, including the 6-quarter slow cooker, steamer and stockpot, rice pot, etc. The list goes on. I had convinced myself the last thing we needed was a multi-cooker. And then along came William Sonoma’s warehouse sale on Instant Pots. It was during a moment of weakness that I ordered one. All I can say in my defense is that I ordered the smallest Instant Pot (fondly referred by us as the “Mini”) to just give it a try. We’ve made perfect rice in it, including a jazzed up Mexican Rice, perfectly-done glazed carrots, creamed corn using fresh corn from Davis Ranch, the most perfect Ricotta Cheese, real Crème Fraiche (fermented, using the slow cook cycle), and most recently, Beef Stroganoff. It just keeps out-performing my highest expectations. If I’m to be honest, they weren’t that high…that’s why I hedged my bet and bought the less-expensive model. We’re in love with the Mini and talking about buying the 6- or 8-quarter model. Actually, we were perfectly happy with the 3-quart until we decided to try to make Crème Brulee and its small size couldn’t accommodate even our smallest ramakins. ☹ For now we’re going to hold off on the larger model until we decide we need it for something more than Crème Brulee, or William Sonoma or Amazon have another warehouse sale.

Besides cooking since I last blogged in August, we’ve made double trips to both LA and Portland. In other words, we’ve spent a lot of time on the road. Our first trip to LA was in early September to get Jana’s cat, Izzy. Yes, you heard me right. We drove 400 miles to have lunch with Jana and Andy and return home with Izzy while they went on vacation to England. Even though I keep all three cats separate, Julie (Izzy’s momma cat) and Olive (Izzy’s sis) sense her presence and, given the opportunity, misbehave. That is, pee on the floor to mark their space. You’d think it would be a happy family reunion…NOT! We managed to keep the bad behavior to a minimum, but it was a good day when we put Izzy in her carrier for our return trip to LA. 

Izzy's road trip

Girls in London September 2019

This time we didn’t even get lunch with Jandy, but did have the pleasure of staying in their condo in downtown LA. The following day we met up with Lara, Raelin and their families for the annual LA Phil Subscriber Appreciation Day at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This was our second time attending the event and it was once again amazing! We started with the music instrument Petting Zoo. The kids (big and little) got to hold and play the instruments and indulge in some body painting. We attended three of the five musical presentations followed by Q&As with the musicians, and then took an audio/video guided tour of the Hall. All I can say is the response to the tour was mixed: I found it surreal in an artsy sort of way, the others found it confusing (so did I), and Rick hated it but couldn’t stop talking about it. I’m certain if we go next year we’ll all take the tour again. There’s just something about it…?  Lunch was also included in the 6-hour open house with food provided by the local LA truck scene. Overall, we had an incredible family day together with the only thing missing being Jana and Andy. Sadly, we left for home the next day without seeing them.

Logan 's attempt to play the violin (Lara, Sam, Matthew, and Raelin watching)

Kendall giving the violin a try

We spent Labor Day weekend helping Lauren pack for the big move to her new home in Beaverton. We managed to get in a few of our favorite outings, including rediscovering the greatest breakfast place in Lake O, Biscuits Café. The food is excellent and they serve homemade jam with every breakfast. Lucky for us there’s a Biscuits Café in Beaverton, so it won’t be the last time Verne and Lauren get their delicious chicken fried steak with white gravy. A month later we returned to Portland to help Lauren settle into her new place. She had done a good job unpacking and organizing all rooms except her new craft room (the third bedroom) and the garage. We focused on the latter building a couple of shelving units and installing a new overhead light. Other big jobs included installing a fan in her gas fireplace and swapping all of her Nest smoke detectors from the Lake O condo with those in her home. That ended up taking two trips and several hours before all were in place with fresh batteries and no chirping, screeching, or other obnoxious noises. 

Breakfast at our favorite restaurant

Verne and Lauren installing a fireplace fan

One final smoke detector in the Lake O condo

We celebrated with dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant in Lake O, Nicoletta’s Table. It’s definitely worth the 30-minute drive from Beaverton, so that won’t be our last time dining there. One of my take-a-ways from helping Lauren move is this – always buy second-hand boxes, paper, and other packing supplies. One of us (I think it was me) suggested looking on Craigslist for used packing supplies. For $70 Lauren purchased 50 moving boxes of mixed sizes and 20 pounds of packing paper – a fraction of the price new. I had no idea people make a business of selling previously-used moving boxes and paper. If all goes as planned, she’ll be one of those sellers and recoup a small portion of her moving expenses. And as a bonus she’ll feel good about her ecologically responsible decision to buy used moving supplies. Actually, Lauren needs no prompting to go-green as she is our tree-hugging conservationist and often our family’s conscience when it comes to living an ecologically responsible life.

Lauren's pieced and quilted  Puffin quilt in the Northwest Quilting Expo