[D]espite my misgivings about all things pumpkin spice (which is mainly due to its too-earliness, if anything), I know that a little pumpkin — and its accompanying spice — can conjure up something delicious. Sometimes, on the way to one thing, another is discovered. This was the case for my […]
Summer crawled along this year, dimmed by our lengthy pandemic status and an early wildfire season. By the time my birthday — as well as that of my blog’s — rolled around, celebrating — as it has felt for much of the last year — seemed a bit ridiculous. The […]
My first bite of madeleine, a yummy little shell-shaped pound cake/cookie, did not release a flood of remembrances, as it did Marcel Proust in his writing about the bakery treat in “In Search of Lost Time†(1913): “…my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing […]
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 […]
Just what is a torte? I have such limited experience with them. Actually, I have had no experience with them until making my first one recently — an irresistible recipe for Apple Cream Torte seemed to promise a range of many of the things I found delicious in dessert: a […]
Two years ago, Northern California was ablaze the first of two fall seasons where wildfires raged and devastated communities, and for weeks darkened the skies and filled the air with a smoke that choked and permeated the atmosphere. It was during that first season of fires that, grateful to have […]
Not long ago, I looked up and another year at my blog — and in my life — had passed. We’d taken another 365 1/4 days of a circular trip around the sun. It was hard to believe I’d been at the blog for nine years and going on my […]
When considering the rightness of the Universe, one can look no further than the timing of the lemon. The depth of winter — this year,= dark, cold and freezing from coast to coast — is the height of lemon season. Bright citrus of all kinds, lead by the lovely lemon, […]
[F]or those of us with limited experience — eating or baking — whoopie pies, we may wonder what all the fuss is about. Sure, they look terribly inviting — plump-soft cookie-cakes sealed together with a creamy filling…a whole lot to love. I had perhaps resisted in making them because they […]
[M]arble cake offers the best of both worlds, well, at least the best of both flavors — vanilla and chocolate cake batters are swirled together to bring two favorite tastes in one. I confess it’s been a long time since I’ve marbled anything — cake or otherwise. I do believe […]