Falling for quince -- and an old friend -- once again

Cook a dish often enough and it becomes an old friend. That’s even better when it actually does come from an old friend.

In cooking, familiarity breeds not contempt but comfort. You know how a recipe comes together. You’ve cooked it enough that it’s in your bones; you can make it without having to think through every step and measurement. You actually know the dish.

What brings this to mind is fall, quince and Deborah Madison. Many, many years ago, I went to my first farmers market with her (this may not be literally true, but it’s as I remember it). It was probably 1983 or ’84 in a dusty parking lot in Albuquerque, N.M.

Deborah was living with my wife and me for a little while, having just left her landmark San Francisco restaurant Greens, and in the midst of putting the finishing touches on the cookbook by that name, which would make her one of vegetarian cooking’s leading lights for the last 30 years.

There wasn’t much available at the market. Just a few stands with some pretty sad-looking greens, if memory serves. But there was one farmer selling quince, which I’d never had before. We bought most of what he had and cooked up a lot of them (the remainder Deb tucked into our closets to perfume them).

Ever since, whenever I cook quince, I think of her. That’s even more true the last couple of years, since I discovered the recipe for Nearly Candied Quince in her 2010 cookbook “Seasonal Fruit Desserts” – a real gem.

It’s very simple – you make a wine-flavored spiced simple syrup, then bake quince wedges in it until they candy. It’ll take a couple of hours and your house will smell amazing. The quince start out hard and pale and gradually soften and take on a rosy hue. The flavor is something like the best spiced apples you’ve ever had.

It’s a cool-weather staple in our house – like always having a little something in the refrigerator for dessert (and with yogurt, it makes a sweet breakfast).

Every year at this time I buy a couple bags of quince from the Garcia Family Farm stand at the Long Beach Marina farmers market. They know me by now and expect it (I think I’m probably one of the few people who actually buys them).

Sunday I loaded up with 4 or 5 pounds, took them home and spent an hour peeling, coring and quartering them. I didn’t have the Riesling that Deb calls for, but I did have one last bottle of rosé, so I used that.

I put the quince in my big roasting pan, poured the syrup over and set it to bake. About two-thirds of the way through, it appeared I’d misjudged the amount of liquid – the fruit were floating. No worries, I just ladled some of it off and set it to simmer on the stove.

When the quince were so tender they were almost falling apart, I spooned them into a couple of glass containers and poured the reduced syrup over top. Then into the refrigerator. Fall is officially here, I’ve got my quince. I wonder how Deb’s doing.

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