It probably sounds strange that when it comes to Valentine’s Day, I think of sugar cookies, not chocolate. Maybe I have holiday goodie dissociative disorder, but my Feb. 14 tastes run directly back to childhood, where, along with white embossed cherry suckers and chalky conversation hearts, there are sugar cookies, […]
The holidays are over, and yet I hang onto them. I always reluctantly enter the Christmas season, but by the time it comes then goes, I’m so overtaken and in love with the holidays that I mourn hard when that time is over. I even love the stress of the […]
It’s been colder than usual this winter. I’ll use that (or any) excuse to fire up the oven, morning, noon or night. The side benefits of baking are warming up the house (and spirit) and perfuming the air with something good. [I] came across a recipe in Elizabeth Alston’s “Biscuits […]
Amazing, when a recipe can restore one’s faith…in oneself, in taking risks, in trying something new, despite doubts. I tried a recipe recently that, by my accounts, seemed not only unlikely to work but definitely would not work under my hands (even with AWS’s experience at cooking and baking, she […]
Every holiday season, even as I bake cookies and make candy, my mind is never very far from cinnamon rolls. [I]’ve written here before (in my blog post of 12/17) of my mom’s cinnamon roll-making, nearly every Christmas for most of my childhood and beyond, the hours (beginning before any […]
It’s nice when making food can transport you…to another time, another place, another person, another season. Even a salad can do this. A salad! Sorry, but I have to admit, I often see salads as boring, and it could be my own fault, as I limit my imagination as far […]
Every year, as the holidays approach, I study countless cookbooks and recipes that share cookie traditions from other places, and for awhile, I’m overwhelmed in trying to choose which cookies I’m going to make. At a certain point, it gets to be too much — I get behind, and I […]
As I move scone-ward through the year, I try to look at seasonal flavors when testing out a variety of monthly scone recipes. The tastes of fall run into spices, nuts, earthy and orange-y colors, apples and pumpkins, and yes, carrots! I’m a huge carrot cake fan, and while this […]
Every Thanksgiving (or most, anyway), I attempt a new side dish. There are so many, and, as I’ve heard recently, as much fuss as people make of the turkey, the Thanksgiving meal is really about the sides. I love the “auditioning” of a potential new favorite…in the past, this has […]
I would wager the discussion happens in a large percentage of kitchens every Thanksgiving: “Well, we should have something green…†Then, this green item — in the sea of brown, beige , white and maybe orange dishes that crowd the Thanksgiving table (and plates) — may or may not happen. […]