[B]ack in the day, which is really only an arm-length back, a generation or two, ladies “put up” vegetables and fruits in an ongoing summertime ritual as the produce came to fruition in their gardens and orchards. By fall, cellar shelves were agleam with shining jars of jewel colors, the […]
[I] sought a simple loaf bread recipe for this month’s recipe test. But when I began perusing the King Arthur Flour website for possibilities, I was overwhelmed with so many delicious options and became impossibly hungry. l thrilled from my thyme-laced popovers (see blog entry in 4/13), I came across […]
[A] few weeks ago, I sat down to begin writing of a delicious hollandaise sauce I had made in the blender, when I read the words of Julia Child in Vol. 1 of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”: “It is extremely easy and almost foolproof to make in the […]
[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 […]