Food & Drink: Autumn at Filoli Food & Drink: Autumn at Filoli (October 05, 2005)

New cookbook will debut at Filoli's annual fall festival

By Jane Knoerle

Almanac Lifestyles Editor

There is a crispness in the air and the sun rides low in the sky. It's time for Filoli's annual fall festival celebrating the harvest from the estate's heritage orchard.

The Saturday, October 8, festival also heralds the arrival of Filoli's new cookbook "Fruit at Filoli: Recipes for Apples and Pears, Persimmons and Quince Quick Breads."

The cookbook, which sells for $12, contains 20 original winning recipes from last year's Autumn at Filoli fruit cook-off. Some of the Bay Area's best-known pastry chefs judged the bake-off, including Flo Braker of Palo Alto, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle; Alan Tangren, retired pastry chef for Chez Panisse; and Todd Kennedy, fruit preservationist, Filoli garden volunteer and self-professed "food crank."

The contest's "best of show" winner was Raw Apple Bread, submitted by Elaine Schafer of San Carlos. It uses Jonathan apples, walnuts and raisins, and is fragrant with cinnamon.

One of the cookbook's more unusual recipes is for cocoa pear tea bread, which earned a second-place prized for Marion VandenBosch of Redwood City, a Filoli volunteer. Bill Hutton came up with "pear bread with a surprise," featuring pears poached in two cups of chardonnay. The surprise is a layer of the poached pears between two layers of batter.

The cookbook also includes an interview with Lurline Roth Coonan of Woodside, who came to live at Filoli as a teen in 1937. Ms. Coonan remembers using apples and pears that grew espaliered on the estate. Apples were used in puddings, upside-down cakes and apple sauce. Pears were preserved under the direction of the family cook, Kee.

One of the family's traditional dishes was persimmon pudding, which was served during the winter holidays. Kee made it each year until he retired.

Ms. Coonan uses another family recipe for persimmon bread, which she makes every year for friends and family, sometimes sending a loaf as far as Ireland to her brother, Bill Roth.
Hayrides and barbecue

The festival is about more than sampling cookbook recipes. There will be docent-led tours of the orchard, samples of estate-made apple cider, hayrides through the meadows, and activities for kids, including making paper airplanes, mask and face painting and pumpkin carving.

Visitors will be able to take photos next to Filoli's antique farm truck, which will be decorated with pumpkins and bales of hay. Handmade scarecrows will be displayed along garden paths and tucked into corners of the mansion. A barbecue lunch may be reserved ahead of time.

The Autumn at Filoli festival had its beginning with a quandary familiar to any back-yard gardener with too much zucchini on his hands. The fruit trees were producing an annual harvest that was too much for the staff and volunteers to absorb, so why not put on a festival and let the public share in the bounty?
Raw Apple Bread

5 to 6 large Jonathan apples 2 eggs, beaten 2 cups sugar 3/4 cup oil 3 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 cup walnuts, chopped 3/4 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Coarsely chop the apples. Measure 3 cups. Mix apples, eggs, sugar, and oil together in a large bowl. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together. Add sifted dry ingredients, walnuts and raisins to apple mixture. Stir to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool breads for 10 minutes in the pans on a wire rack. Remove the breads from pans to wire rack to finish cooling.
Cocoa Pear Tea Bread

3 to 4 white doyenne pears 3 eggs 1 cup butter, softened 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup water 1 tablespoon vanilla 2-1/2 cups flour 2 tablespoons cocoa 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground allspice 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup raisins 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter one 9 x 5-inch loaf pan and one 5 x 3-inch loaf pan. Peel, core and grate pears, Measure 2 cups. In a bowl, cream together eggs, butter, sugar, water and vanilla until light and fluffy. Mix flour, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt.

Stir the creamed mixture into the dry mixture, just until ingredients are mixed. Stir in pears, raisins and walnuts. Pour mixture into prepared pans. Bake for 60 to 75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Check small pan after 45 minutes. Cool breads for 10 minutes in the pans on a wire rack. Remove breads from pans and finish cooling on wire rack.

"Fruit at Filoli" was compiled by Filoli garden volunteers Lynn Bent, Chris Lowell, Jim Salyards, and Kathleeen Tharp. It sells for $12 and will be available at the festival and at the Filoli Garden Shop.
INFORMATION

Filoli autumn celebration Saturday, October 8 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. General admission: $15 members; $20 non-members; $5 children 5-17; children under 5 free. Barbecue lunches: $15 adults, $6 children. Tickets and reservations: 364-8300, ext. 508. Filoli is located at 86 Canada Road, Woodside

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