I adore pumpkin pie spice, that fragrant blend of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves or allspice. One whiff evokes the brightly colored hues of autumn, my favorite season, and the aromas of Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.

I use it in pumpkin pie, of course, but also in cookies, bars, apple dishes—and coffee. I’m not generally a fan of flavored coffees, but Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte is very nice indeed. It also contains a goodly dose of sugar (something I have to eat and drink in moderation) and costs $4 a cup.

So I make my own version at home. It’s easy to do. Just add a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice per cup of coffee directly to the grounds before brewing. (I’m assuming you have a drip coffeemaker.) Brew as usual, and sweeten to taste with sugar or Splenda.

It’s not Starbucks, but it tastes good and smells great while it’s brewing. Pumpkin pie spice-spiked coffee is a wonderful way to wake up to a crisp fall morning.

A study about a link between violence and a deficiency in omega 3 fatty acids adds more evidence that our french fry- and salad dressing-laden diet harms more than our figures. In a way, it “short-circuits” our brains.

This is not a new idea; some researchers have been warning for decades that the dramatic shift in the past century in the types of oil we eat may have dire consequences. In short, we all eat way more omega 6s (found in plant oils such as soy, corn and safflower) and way too little omega 3s (found in fish, flaxseed, walnuts and greens). These essential fatty acids play a prime role in brain development.

While the number of well-designed studies is relatively small and results are mixed, fairly good evidence indicates that supplementation with omega 3s (particularly the type found in fish oils) can help alleviate the symptoms of depression and bipolar disorder, and reduce aggression.

The idea that omega 3s can make your kid smarter, stave off cancer or improve your sex life is, at this point, mainly a pleasant fantasy perpetuated by people who sell fish oil supplements. Still, it probably won’t hurt to take fish oil supplements, and it may help.

Fish oil is safe—safer in many cases than fish, which can be contaminated with mercury and PCBs. Fish oil supplements tested by Consumer Lab contained no detectable levels of mercury, PCBs or other contaminants. Taking a lot of fish oil could have side effects, ranging from the minor (fishy belching) to more serious (bleeding too much, if you are on other anticoagulants).

You needn’t spend a fortune on fish oil supplements. Nearly all the fish oil products Consumer Lab tested were pure and contained the amounts of fatty acids advertised. I usually buy fish oil capsules at Costco. I like the enteric-coated ones–less fishy burping.

It began one stormy and windswept Halloween night.

I took my two kids out trick-or-treating and left a pot of beef stew on the stove, with instructions to my husband to stir it every now and then.

Trick-or-treating in such miserable weather turned out to be hard work, and it was pretty late by the time we got home.

I looked for the potatoes I’d added to the stew, and they were nowhere to be found. Turns out they’d gotten so soft that they simply dissolved as my husband stirred the long-simmering stew.

My kids declared it the best stew I’d ever made, once again proving that sometimes the best dishes are created by mistake.

Ever since then, beef stew thickened by mashed potatoes has been a favorite in our household.

Mashed Potato Beef Stew

Makes 4 to 5 servings

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into bite-size pieces
Flour
1 1/2 cups peeled, sliced carrots
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence, or herb mix of your choice
1 cup water
1 cup red wine (or water)
4 medium boiling potatoes (about 1 pound)
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil. Dust the meat lightly with flour and add it to the oil in 2 or 3 batches, cooking it until lightly browned. Remove meat to a plate.

Add carrots, garlic and onions to the pot and cook over medium heat until onions are softened.

Add water and wine if using, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add meat back to pot, bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to very low, partially cover, and cook for 1 hour, stirring 2 or 3 times and adding more water as necessary to keep stew from sticking.

Peel the potatoes and cut into bite-size chunks. Add to the stew and stir. Partially cover and cook over very low heat for an additional hour, stirring occasionally and adding a little more water if necessary to keep stew from sticking, or until meat is tender and potatoes are very soft. Use a large spoon to mash the potatoes into the stew.

Serve hot.

I run a cookie recipe site and was doing some research to see what keywords and phrases people are searching for in the cookie recipe realm. Researching “brownies” was an eye opener.

It seems that a whole lot of people out there are searching for recipes for brownies that carry an extra payload in the form of a plant that is, shall we say, a prized member of the hemp family. My, my.

Personally, I don’t know why anyone would want to adulterate good chocolate with pot—or for that matter, why anyone other than a horse would eat grass rather than smoke it (not that I admit to any personal experience, mind you)—but hey, different strokes and all that. If you are looking for illegally enhanced brownie recipes, just hit Google and you’ll find plenty of them. If you just want great brownies, minus the mind-altering substances, try my Classic Chocolate Brownies recipe.

Oddly enough, I do have a genuine cookbook recipe for a pot-enhanced dessert, though it’s for fruit and nut fudge, not brownies. It is from The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, first published in 1954 and reissued in 1984 and again in 1998. Yes, that Alice B. Toklas, the secretary and lifelong companion of writer Gertrude Stein. Tucked in amongst the reminiscences of life in France and the recipes for chocolate mousse and oysters Mornay is a recipe for Haschich (sic) Fudge. I offer it here purely as a historical curiosity, since bringing this to the family potluck could get you arrested in the United States (and many other countries).

Toklas explains wryly that her fudge “might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies’ Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR….Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected….”

Her recipe: “Take 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1 whole nutmeg, 4 average sticks of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon coriander. These should all be pulverised in a mortar. About a handful each of stoned dates, dried figs, shelled almonds and peanuts: chop these and mix them together. A bunch of canibus sativa can be pulverised. This along with the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit and nuts, kneaded together. About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake and cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut, it should be eaten with care. Two pieces are quite sufficient.”

I don’t know. I think I’d stick with brownies.

I loathe skim milk.

There, I’ve confessed the truth, in all its nutritionally incorrect squalor.

They always say that if you eat or drink something long enough, you’ll get used to it. Sure, skim milk doesn’t taste as good as full milk (a.k.a. real milk), but just drink it, they said, and you’ll get your calcium without all that nasty saturated fat.

Let’s toss aside for the moment the argument about whether milk is really essential for strong bones. Let’s talk about flavor. Skim milk has none. It tastes like an amnesiac’s memory of milk.

My grandmother, who came of age in the days when milk was delivered right to your door, with the cream on top and the skim milk on the bottom, used the cream in desserts and her wonderful creamed vegetables, drank the milk, and reserved the skim milk for stuff where its lack of flavor wouldn’t matter: in pancake batter, maybe, or as slop for the pigs.

I tried to be a good girl. Really I did. OK, skim milk was a bit too much, but I drank 1% milk, which is almost as low in fat. I drank it for years, actually. I poured it into my coffee and watched it turn the coffee gray. I used it in pancake batter and in smoothies. I ordered the skim lattes at Starbucks. Once in a while I held my nose and drank it straight.

I never got used to it. Ever. One day I looked at my husband and said, “Screw this. Get me some milk that tastes like milk.”

My conscience pricked me just enough to compromise on 2% milk rather than the full-fat stuff. Reduced-fat milk doesn’t taste quite as good as real milk, but I tell you, next to skim milk, it’s the creme de la creme.