Business calls. I'll be out all day. Back with lots more about pudding on Monday. Great weekends all around!

It's obvious, right? The hachiya persimmon on the left is bright orange, firm and smooth while the one on the left is darker and starting to look like a balloon with some of the air let out. The skin looks a little loose, plus it dimples under the slightest pressure. That persimmon is ready to be made into pudding...if I can keep my grubby hands off of it that long.

...you can drink persimmons too? Plenty of Americans in the East and Southeast once did. As mentioned, persimmons, when ripe, are incredibly sweet fruits. Only dates contains more natural glucose. And where there is sugar there is (at least potentially) alcohol, yes? Those who were with me through last month's posts on apple cider know exactly how this process works. Juice a ripe persimmon and "'simmon" beer or wine are only a few ticks of the clock away. Both were extremely popular types of homemade hooch in 18th and 19th centuries.

Or at least that was the conventional wisdom back around the turn of the century in American persimmon country. Most people, it seems, had either forgotten or never knew all the potential uses for the persimmon. One region that never seems to have forgotten is southern Indiana. Especially the town of Mitchell, which hosts a persimmon festival every year. As it happens, Mitchell is almost literally a stone's throw from where the Pastry family is going to be spending Thanksgiving this year. I wish I could say I was going to be stopping by to sample the puddings and pies, and shake the hand of the Persimmon Queen, but alas it's been over for more than a month now. Next year for sure!

Not the cartoon character, the writer. Some scholars speculate that the persimmon was the fruit that the "lotus eaters" ate in The Odyssey. As you may recall from high school lit class, the land of the lotus eaters was one of the stops Odysseus made on his meandering trip home from Troy. On landing, his men disembarked and were immediately handed samples of a strange fruit by the layabout locals. The fruit turns out to be so delicious that the men immediately become dreamy and lethargic, forgetting all about their homes and responsibilities. Odysseus eventually drags them back kicking and screaming to the boats, where he's forced to tie them down to their rowing benches to keep them from diving overboard after more. That, my friends, is good fruit.

Of course no one today really knows what the magic "lotus" really was, or if the strange land Homer described even existed. The Odyssey is fiction, after all. Yet what keeps people guessing is that the land of the lotus eaters also appears in the writings of Herodotus, the Western World's first genuine historian. Herodotus claimed that the land was real — a peninsula somewhere on the North African coast. This has led many scholars to speculate that the "lotus" Homer wrote about was actually some sort of locally-occurring plant, a natural sedative or psychedelic. A mere fruit, they say, could never make a man fall into a hopeless stupor, forget who he is and what he's supposed to be doing. Whoever these people are, they've obviously never had a really good persimmon pie.

The missus never goes anywhere without noticing sweet things to eat. It's one of the reasons I married her. In addition to last week's knishes, she snapped a few pix of some interesting baking action in Manhattan. The first one isn't new, but it's one of my must-eats whenever I get back to New York: mini-cannoli at Veniero's in the East Village. I'd whack my own brudder (if I had a brudder) for a handful of those right now!

And of course New York is on fire for cupcakes these days. It has been ever since Sex in the City made the Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street more famous than even they wanted, probably. Cupcake mania has spread to many other spots since Sarah Jessica Parker and Co. started perching on the Magnolia's front bench. This place, Crumbs, has gotten quite a bit of attention for their cupcakes, and it's easy to see why. Those things are loaded!

Leave it to the missus to stop passersby and ask for photos of the foods they're carrying. These cupcakes are from a hot "dessert club" called ChickaLiscious. Only in New York.

Last we have an example of something that might best be termed "guerrilla baking." This is Scott Alexander, a musician from Brooklyn who is gaining notoriety for sitting on a green inflatable couch in places like Central Park and Union Square and handing out his own homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Why? To promote his music? Sort of, but mostly he says to make new friends. The way he sees it, friends make a great audience, so why not build an audience by making as many friends as possible? It's so crazy it just might work! Go Scott! Follow him ("Free Cookies NYC") on Twitter and/or Facebook.

It's a St. Louis thing, and boy do they love it. It can be deliciously rich or way, WAY over the top depending on where you get it. This week's New York Times food section has a good article on the subject if you're interested.

Most of the non-native persimmons that North Americans find in stores — when they find them at all — are hachiya persimmons. They're astringent, which isn't a bad thing so long as you consume them when they're ripe. But then that's the problem. Not so much that astringent persimmons don't ripen, but that there's no telling when they're going to ripen. For hachiya persimmons are like cats, they have minds of their own and do nothing in groups. Buy four or five together and one may ripen the next day, another the next week and another the next month.

What can you do to hasten the ripening of a hachiya persimmon? Nothing. Yes, you can put it in a paper bag in an attempt to concentrate the ripening ethylene gasses they give off. You can even put a big-time ethylene producer like a banana in there with it. That'll help some, but for the most part you'll still be at the mercy of the hachiya persimmon's own mysterious biological clock.

That's not a problem if you're the type that likes to be surprised by a perfectly ripe persimmon every once in a while. I sure do. The challenge then is to sneak the thing into my pocket without anyone noticing, then divert the family's attention long enough so I can skulk off to the garage or the basement with a spoon. What?

But what if you need a bunch of ripe persimmon flesh for a recipe? There you're stuck. For once a hachiya persimmon is perfectly ripe, it'll only keep a couple of days, even in the fridge. The solution, though rather unromantic, is to buy your persimmons well ahead of time and as they ripen scoop out the flesh, put it into an airtight container and freeze it until the next one ripens. In time — a couple of weeks, usually — you'll accumulate enough for your recipe. And yes, persimmon flesh freezes very well.

Fuyu persimmons, if you can find those, are usually ready to go right out of the produce bin. As for the American variety, you can ripen — "blett" — them yourself if they aren't edible when you pick them. Just put them in the freezer and let them freeze solid. When they thaw they should be ready to use. If not, repeat the process.

Persimmons come in two different types: astringent and non-astringent. Astringent varieties taste pretty much the way they sound: mouth-puckering to the point of inedibility — at least if they aren't completely ripe. It's the tannins, you see. Phenolic compounds that are enjoyable in small amounts (say, in good red wine) but offensive in concentration. When astringent persimmons are perfectly ripe they are incredibly sweet and jammy in the center. Hachiya persimmons are the most common astringent persimmon found in stores. Longer and more tapered than other persimmons (almost like a bell pepper) they need to be ripened to the point of extreme softness, almost mushiness, before they can be eaten. But when they get that way, Lord are they good.

American persimmons are of the astringent variety, which is why they're harvested extremely late in the growing season, after a few good hard frosts have "bletted" the fruit, rendering it soft and sweet. American persimmons aren't often found in stores, probably because by the time they're ripe they aren't terribly pleasant looking. If you want some, you usually have to go to a tree. But be quick about it, because humans aren't the only critters waiting around for persimmon season to start. Squirrels, possums and raccoons find them every bit as appealing as we do.

Of the non-astringent varieties, Fuyu are among the most popular. These you can eat like apples as soon as you buy them. They're also great in prepared desserts.

One of the things I personally love about the flesh of any kind of ripe persimmon is that it's a ready-made sorbet in a skin. You simply freeze the whole fruit and eat it (or scoop the frozen flesh out if you prefer). Another very interesting quality of persimmon flesh is that once it's pureéd, it can be whipped all by itself into a foam that will last for hours, making it outstanding for garnishes or toppings. Lastly, since persimmon flesh doesn't discolor when it's exposed to oxygen, a purée of persimmon will tint any cake or pudding orange (assuming it doesn't get overheated or exposed to an alkaline like baking soda). All in all it's an extremely versatile, underutilized fruit.

A roundish, orange-ish, sweetish fruit of about medium size (which is to say, neither largish nor smallish). Its skin is glossy like a tomato's, though that's pretty much where the similarity ends. Persimmons are unique in that varieties of them occur naturally all around the northern hemisphere. They're native not only to North America, but to Mexico and many parts of Europe, North Africa and Asia.

They vary quite a bit in size, taste and appearance depending on where you find them. In America persimmons grow in the eastern and southeastern part of the country, and as a rule are quite small, rather hard and usually dry (the word "persimmon" is in fact a Cree Indian word for "dry fruit").

Asian varieties, on the other hand, tend to be quite a bit larger and more succulent. This is why, when you go searching for persimmons in grocery stores, you usually find cultivars named things like kaki, hachiya and fuyu (hey, fuyu too, buddy!). Many of these varieties were imported to the West Coast in the 1800's, where they are still grown.

What do persimmons taste like? Not entirely unlike an apricot, though they can be a lot sweeter. They're also more gelatinous on the inside, which can give one the impression that persimmons are actually small containers of jam that grow on trees. That's how I think of them, anyway, at least when they're ripe. And therein lies the rub...

And no, not instant pudding, but English-style pudding. The timing on this is excellent, since we're getting into that time of year. It's hard to know where to start with pudding, since it's like trying to tackle the subject of "cake" with just one recipe. However I know what my personal favorite pudding is: persimmon. The persimmon happens to be in season right now, and as it happens, is a fascinating topic all by itself. So...shall we?

Having been blogging almost daily for some four years now, I've really gotten to know my readership. When I put up my Kentucky Knish post last Friday, I had every expectation that I'd be getting a lot of grief for it. Sure enough, within minutes the first complaints came trickling in. "Too flat", "too French","too fluffy", "too fancy", "on the line between knish and calzone", "not Jewish enough", and perhaps my favorite so far: "borderline racist." I was prepared for all that, so those shots just bounced off me like so many howitzer rounds off of Megalon, the giant subterranean insect terror. One email, however, managed to penetrate my meters-thick exoskeleton and strike tender flesh. It was this from reader Paula:

These travesties show very clearly that you have never made a real knish, nor have slightest concept about what a real knish is about.

Madam, I'll have you know that I did my baking training on Chicago's North Shore. So out of the way, please, baker coming through. I need to use the hand sink.

Using the standard knish dough recipe below, whisk together your dry ingredients.

Then make a well in the center and add your beaten egg...

...followed by the wet ingredients.

Bring the dough together with a spatula...

...then knead it lightly into a ball. It will be somewhat oily feeling. That's what you want. Let the dough rest and hydrate for an hour. It may weep a little bit of oil as it sits. That's perfectly OK.

Meanwhile make your filling. Here I've got three medium red potatoes (cooked), about half a cup of deeply caramelized yellow onions (one onion diced finely, cooked gently in two tablespoons of vegetable oil over low heat for a little over an hour), about a two-ounce blob of goat cheese (OK, not traditional), and a teaspoon of salt.

Mashed. This isn't nearly enough filling for this amount of dough, but it's a good "for-instance." Knishes are great stuffed with just about any leftovers you have in the fridge.

When you're ready to shape your knishes, generously flour a dough board. Pull off a piece of dough from the ball and start rolling. You'll find that as long as you use enough flour, it's a very flexible and forgiving dough that rolls out easily. Roll it out as thin as you can without the dough tearing. The precise shape of your sheet isn't important. A rough rectangle is just fine.

When the dough is nice and thin, apply a long mound of filling to the bottom edge. I'm making rather small knishes, so my filling mound is small. For bigger knishes, well, you know what to do.

Then — and you can probably see where this is going — enclose the filling to form a long roll.

Roll the dough up in the sheet, but not terribly tightly. Knishes tend to want to break open in the oven. A little slack will help prevent this. Since this dough sheet is very thin, I keep rolling until the tube has about two layers on it. Some people really go nuts in this step and roll their dough out even thinner so as to give the tube four or five flaky layers. Me, I'm happy with two. Some like a thicker crust in just one layer. It's really up to you.

When you've got as much crust on your knishes as you like, use a pizza cutter to trim off the excess. Add the scraps back to the dough ball for re-rolling.

Trim the excess, if there is much, from the ends.

Now to shape the actual knishes. This is very like making sausage. You want to pinch off about a three or four-inch length.

Give it a twist.

Then using your pizza cutter, cut it off.

The result is indeed like a small sausage. Pinch the ends shut to enclose the filling.

Turn the knish end-up on the pastry board...

...and with your palm push it down to form a squat cylinder.

Poke the top down with your finger to keep the center from crowning in the oven.

Lay the knishes out on sheet pans — these don't need any proofing — and either bake, refrigerate (up to three days) or freeze (up to three months).

When ready to bake, paint with egg wash...

...and bake 30-40 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit until the crusts are golden brown.

No concept of a knish. Indeed.

One of the nice things about this dough is how easy it is to prepare and store. You just mix it up, let it sit for an hour, and it's ready to use. Or, you can refrigerate it until you're ready to use it, up to several days.

11 ounces all-purpose (AP) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil (very soft rendered chicken fat [schmalz], if you can find it, is even better)
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 cup lukewarm water

Whisk together your dry ingredients, beat the egg in a small bowl, and combine the vegetable oil, vinegar and water in a separate bowl or measure. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the beaten egg and the wet ingredients. Bring the dough together with a spatula, then knead lightly into a ball. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough sit for an hour at room temperature to relax and hydrate.

The nice thing about these sorts of brioche pocket pies is that they keep well and don't take much time to proof, only half an hour. Thus it's easy to make a large quantity and bake them off as needed. Once they're shaped, they can be refrigerated for a day or two, then simply removed from the fridge, allowed to proof, painted with egg wash and baked. Alternately the shaped pies can be frozen for two to three months. If you want them ready for, say, your kids' lunches in the morning, just put a couple of frozen knishes on a baking sheet the afternoon or evening before and put the baking sheet in the fridge. By morning they will have thawed, and will be ready for proofing and baking. Assuming you get up at least an hour before the kids leave on the bus, you can get them proofed and baked off with ease, then congratulate yourself as you watch your children walk out the door with a fresh-baked lunch. Ha! Top THAT Dinkelberg! you can say to yourself as you watch your neighbor's kid traipse forlornly out the house with his usual peanut butter sandwich. Already-baked knishes will keep well enough in the refrigerator for the next day's lunch, but don't provide the same kind of smug satisfaction.

That question from several readers so far. If so, what's below is a pocket pie. But you know, I can live with that. It's been a fun week.

As I've been saying, I don't make "authentic" knishes (I think I've cast reasonable doubt as to whether such a thing even exists). My little ones turn their noses up at traditional pocket pie crusts. I don't know if it's the color, the texture or what. Who can fathom the depths of a toddler's tastes? However they love brioche. And while brioche isn't as easy as a simple stir-and-roll pie dough, it tastes a lot better. It's also a very handy thing to have in your baking repertoire. There's a tutorial for it under Pastry Components.

Begin by generously flouring a pastry board.

Apply a lump of brioche dough, straight from the fridge (about half of your standard recipe)...

...and rolling it out very thin, about 1/8 inch

Apply a round cutter to the dough. Here I'm using a 3 5/8" ring, but you can go bigger if you like a bigger knish.

Apply a heaping tablespoon of your choice of filling. To go traditional, combine about two cups of cooked red potato with half a cup of finely chopped caramelized onions. Salt and pepper to taste. (Take it uptown by stirring in a couple of ounces of goat cheese.)

If meat is your thing, you can go that way, too. Sauté one small chopped yellow onion in a tablespoon of butter. Add half a pound of ground beef, lamb or — steady purists — pork. When the meat is fully cooked, drain off the fat. Lastly, add about a cup of diced potato that you've sautéed in butter until browned. Cool.

As I mentioned previously, my girls love country ham and cheese, which I guess makes this a true Kentucky knish.

However you decide fill them, apply another circle of dough to the top.

Press the edges down lightly to get the air out.

You can skip this next step if you like, though I find it useful for keeping the filling from spreading and/or leaking. Take a circle cutter just big enough to encircle the dough, turn it so the lip is facing down...

..and lightly press to seal the filling in.

Fold the edges in and press to crimp. I don't worry about form too much...

...because I flip them when I put them on the baking sheet. This gives me a smooth top without a seam.

Proof these for half an hour while you preheat your oven to 350. Apply egg wash and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden.

Don Cuevas at My Mexican Kitchen submits his green chile, potato & cheese knish recipe for you approval.

Why is that about 90% of New York City street vendors — like this friendly fellow here — reply as such when asked for a knish? The reason is twofold. First, the knish has nosedived in quality over the last several decades, especially the type sold from carts. That's brought demand for the knish way down. Second, health regulations changed. In 1996, pre-cooked potato was designated as a hazardous food item by the New York City health department. That meant that in order to be sold legally, any food containing cooked potato either had to be a) prepared on the spot just before serving, or b) held at a temperature of at least 140 until it was served. Since New York street knishes are fried, option "a" was out. I mean, try pushing an open vat of 375-degree fry oil down a sidewalk some afternoon. You'll quickly see why the world isn't full of mobile fish & chip stands. That left option "b", but not every vending cart is equipped with the right sort of holding cabinet. Space is quite limited on a street cart — believe me, I know, I've sold from them before. It's better not to take up space or add weight if you can help it, especially not for a slow-selling item like a mass-produced knish. Add all that up and you can see why the former king of the New York streets was long ago deposed by the pretzel and hot dog. Sure, there are still places to buy them, but the heyday of the knish is over.

"Knish" is a Yiddish word, Yiddish being a Germanic language created by Ashkenazi Jews who settled in and around the Rhine Valley about the year 900. It closely resembles two other words in current use today, the Russian knys which means "pastry" and the Polish knyz meaning "snack." Put those two together, and that's pretty much a knish. Were Old World knishes like anything like New World knishes? That's where the picture gets fuzzy. But then I'm not sure, save for a short period in the early part of the 20th century, that the concept of the knish has ever been in very sharp focus. "A (usually) baked snack" may be as precise a definition as I can muster. (Thanks to readers Chana and Jim).

Take heed all you just-married guys out there: this is the kind of dedication you engender when you're as good a husband as Joe is. The missus walked all the way down from 87th and Amsterdam to about 50th and Broadway, just to take a picture of a knish.

You know, honey, I'd have preferred that you'd opened the foil a bit more so the folks at home could see the squared corners of the slab, but don't worry, you're doing great! Keep hoofin'! At this rate I figure you can make it out to Knish Nosh in Queens by sundown!