I was ten years old and our school librarian, Miss Hall had just completed reading us the book entitled, ‘Cranberry Thanksgiving’. I was enraptured. I checked out the book for myself. It was a simple book with a blue cover. It was a child’s book. It captivated me completely.
There was a character in the story, the indomitable Grandmother, with a secret cranberry recipe kept hidden away from recipe thieves. I decided to try this recipe and it was a success. It was not just the ingredients, nor the fact that my parents loved the taste. It was kitchen ambience, spilled flour on the braided rug and the orange lamplights casting a glow through the window; out into the inky black November backyard. The dark purple colors swirled on the pages of that old book. There was a cranberry bog, for goodness sake, windy highlands and the surprising twist at the end of the story.
The story and recipe embraced the childhood desire for secrecy and hidden things and something as new as grating an orange peel and the arduous task of chopping cranberries and potential thieves lurking on Seymour Street and the hint of coming holidays.
I place two pans of this bread in the oven and the house begins to smell of cranberry, orange sugar and walnut air. I am thankful for this November memory, for our librarian with her quirky hats and her contagious joy of reading. May we all cheer such a life of literacy, swirling cinnamon colors and a heated oven. I am thankful for a kitchen in which to work, and almost five decades of cranberry bread. Thank you Miss Hall for tolerating all of us at the squirrely age of ten years and ‘Grandmother’ for sharing your recipe…
690 Saint Paul 