a recipe for several kinds of warmth

The foods of the soul are many, but on the first truly cold night of autumn my favorite recipe is this:

Invite to your house a dear friend, maybe two. The ones I like best for this are those who will bring over books or journals, colored pencils, quiet, dreamy projects, and can spend the evening moving unselfconsciously from conversation into a reverie of work and back again.

Quiet music is all right, if you like it.

A bottle of apple cider, bought fresh and warmed in a pan with cinnamon sticks and afterwards poured over a little bit of whiskey in the mug, is a nice thing, and so is tea. Make sure you have something big enough to warm your hands -- not because it's cold, but so you can wrap it in your palms when you are lost in thought mid-conversation.

And at some point, probably the beginning so the fine smell of it will permeate the house as you sit pleasantly together, make some of this:

EDITH'S GINGERBREAD
¼ cup shortening
¼ cup sugar
spices: how much? oh, plenty of cinnamon and a dash of ground cloves, or something like ten whole ones; I like a good grating of nutmeg too.
ginger -- fresh ginger is a must. I use a big nubbin and grate it in, making sure to squeeze the hairy useless nub over the pan before I toss it to get out all the good juices. half a cup of finely chopped candied ginger in addition is delicious.
1 ¼ cups flour
½ cup molasses
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda plus ¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup boiling water
1 beaten egg
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Cream the shortening and sugar together. Sift the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, flour and baking powder together. Beat the ½ teaspoon soda into the molasses until it is light and fluffy, and add to the shortening and sugar. Add the ¼ teaspoon soda to the boiling water, and then add it alternately with the sifted dry ingredients. Fold in the beaten egg when all is well mixed. The mixture will seem too thin to make a cake but do not increase the quantity of flour.

Pour into a greased and floured pan and bake...how long? if you use a loaf pan, almost an hour, sometimes more, depending on such strange vagaires as all good recipes depend on. You can use cake pans, but there is nothing so satisfying as the loaf, unless you pour it into muffin tins and make it like that instead...I find the muffins often come out oddly peaked, but no less delicious.

To be eaten with applesauce, somewhat dreamily.

Try to make extra and put it in the fridge; if anything, it is more heavenly the next day, thinly sliced and cold and buttered! MFK Fisher says so, and she's right.

This will stay the soul well against the coming winter.