Whole roasted cauliflower, stuffed acorn squash, brown butter mashed potatoes, cranberry pear crumble bars, and three books for the season
I think this may have been the most beautiful month so far this year. Yes, I realize we are only thirteen days in. Every morning I open the door to a chill in the air and the most beautiful light coming through the pines. It is layer weather: a t-shirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, and a jacket in the morning, and by afternoon the jacket is on the hall tree. Not too far away. It will be needed again by the fire pit.
Have there been Novembers like this before? Probably. This year I seem to be noticing them more.
And with that, on to the favorites.
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Friday Food
It is never too early to start thinking about Thanksgiving.
Cauliflower with Chimichurri and Tahini from Honest Cooking. A whole head of cauliflower, briefly boiled, scored, and roasted at high heat until the edges are golden. Then it comes out of the oven and gets a generous pour of cilantro chimichurri, a drizzle of tahini, and chopped pistachios and black sesame seeds.
![Sausage stuffed acorn squash halves roasted thanksgiving autumn dinner]](https://pineconesandacorns.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Sausage-Stuffed-Acorn-Squash-Recipe-683x1024.jpg)
Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash from An Edible Mosaic. The squash halves are roasted until tender and then filled with a savory stuffing of Italian turkey sausage, celery, onion, garlic, fresh rosemary, thyme, and sage, with pine nuts and dried cranberries worked through for a little sweetness and crunch. It works as a Thanksgiving side or as a main course all on its own.
Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes from Most Lovely Things. The potatoes go through a ricer so the texture is perfectly smooth, and the butter is browned until it is nutty and golden before it goes in. Some of it is reserved to drizzle over the top. The recipe can be made a few hours ahead, which is exactly what you need on Thanksgiving when the oven is busy and the kitchen is full.
Something Sweet
![Cranberry pear crumble bars overhead view parchment paper holiday baking]](https://pineconesandacorns.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/cranberry-pear-crumble-bars.jpg)
Cranberry Pear Crumble Bars from right here on Pinecones and Acorns. A buttery shortbread crust, a filling of fresh cranberries and ripe pears cooked down with brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and cardamom into something thick and smelling of warm spices, and then the same crumble dough scattered over the top and baked until golden.
Read, Watch, Listen
Why the 300-year-old novel Gulliver’s Travels is so misunderstood
This Life Hack Transformed How I Handle Everyday Stressors
6 Things That Could Be Making Your Holiday Guests Feel Uncomfortable Without You Even Realizing It
Dried Hydrangea Holiday Mantel From Now Through Christmas
Meet the bodega cats illegally keeping New York City shops rodent-free
Brands lean into human creativity as handcrafted art becomes more of a luxury in the age of AI
Muscle health is key to longevity. Here’s how to measure yours.
Did the World Just Gain Hundreds of Millions of Alzheimer’s Patients?
On the Nightstand
The Last Christmas by Liz Fenwick. At ninety-eight, Meredith Tremayne Russell has spent her life mapping the world: first in intelligence during the Second World War, and later as a professor. Now, with time running out, she returns to her old Cornish home to sell it and to scatter her beloved husband’s ashes. With her is her twenty-five-year-old granddaughter Grace, who has always believed herself a failure in a family of academics. When Grace unlocks her great-grandmother’s abandoned art studio, she finds the work of a passionate artist and a French Resistance fighter, and a story she never knew existed.
This is the kind of book that is made for December: Cornwall, a nearly century-old love story, a wartime secret, and two women across generations finding their way toward each other. Meredith’s final mission, it turns out, is not to say goodbye to her old home but to draw one last map, showing Grace how to navigate a life of her own making.
The Winter Guest by Karen Swan. In 1961, Lise Erlach is twenty-two, beautiful, newly married to an Ambassador, and living in the most glamorous version of Paris imaginable. She is at every party and wanted by one man above all, and their affair is dazzling right up until a distant crisis changes everything. In present day, Lise’s granddaughter Dulcie sits by her grandmother’s bed when a visitor arrives with something urgent to say, and Dulcie realizes she does not know the woman she loves as well as she thought.
Two timelines, Paris in its most seductive era, the Alps in winter, and a family secret that has been waiting decades to surface. 
The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard. Five novels. Three generations of one English family, beginning in Sussex in 1937 and moving through the war years and into the fifties. Affairs, ambitions, passions, and the particular texture of middle-class English life across three extraordinary decades. Elizabeth Jane Howard is one of those writers who makes you feel as though you are living inside the life she is describing, not reading about it from the outside.
Outfit of the Day
I shared this red sweater in yesterday’s email and it struck a chord, so today I styled it. A white button-down, charcoal gray pants, a simple black bag, and of course a pair of plaid shoes. Plaid really is for all seasons. The sweater does the work, so the rest stays simple. Add a brooch or a necklace if you like, or leave it exactly as it is.
Outfit Seperates
That is what I have for you this week, friends. November is here and it is glorious, Thanksgiving is two weeks away, and my stack of Christmas books is growing faster than my stack of anything else.
Do not forget to come back Saturday for Weekend Meanderings with Kim at Northern California Style and Juliet at Make Mine a Spritzer. We always have something worth sharing.
Tell me: are you a Thanksgiving cook, or do you go somewhere else for the holiday?Â
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