[F]or a springtime bread, I mused over something light and bright, something I’d long wanted to make. Popovers. They seemed to carry a mystique…they were made with a special pan…the oven door could not be opened while baking or ruin would befall them…they were American spinoffs of Yorkshire pudding. I […]
[S]pring heralds with it certain tastes, pushing up like new grass in a warming earth. I find myself craving mushrooms, and I know why. Years ago, our springs were spent in pursuit of them in the wild. While other families played miniature golf, we scavenged the brush- and tree-clotted timber, […]
“A good fight should be like a small play, but played seriously. A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come.” — Bruce Lee, “Enter the Dragon” AWS appreciates challenges and does rise to them. Given the time and […]
[S]ometimes it is necessary to fall under a spell. And my potion of choice recently has been hot chocolate. I have been inspired in the past and of late by a beautiful little film called Chocolat (2000), which has its own mystical properties. Based on the novel by Joanne Harris, […]
[T]he mystery of baking makes it very appealing to me. Sure, there is science to explain it all away, but I prefer to think of baking as following a code, a pact, if you will. Created by some alchemist, tested, so that you follow it along in faith, assembling this […]
[M]y recollections of gingerbread begin with a very special kindergarten teacher who brought both her morning and afternoon classes TO HER HOME for a day of sledding and making gingerbread. She had the dough already made and allowed us all — snowy and unruly — into her kitchen (somehow we […]
[M]any regions boast a bread that is specific to the holidays. The Italians have Panettone, a tall, slightly sweet yeast bread dotted with dried or candied fruits. The Swedish have Lucia Buns, s-shaped twists spiced with saffron and cardamom, served in honor of St. Lucia. The Germans have a curious […]
[M]y recent foray into ground corn (see previous blog about cornbread) got me excited about another version of the creature — polenta, a delicious interpretation that, cooked up, lends its creamy self to all manner of delicacies. Most recently, I found myself yet again floating toward the television, watching a […]
[T]raditions. More and more — in terms of cooking and beyond –it seems the option one grew up with, be it a recipe, cooking method, practice, is the correct and only one. Take cornbread, for example. I do like a sweet cornbread, but because of my family’s declaration that a […]
[I]f you are lucky to live long enough, it gets easier to separate the wheat from the chaff. Over a life, if you pay attention, you will find yourself in the idyllic condition of understanding what matters most. And what means something to you. And what make up your favorite […]
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