[E]ach year, I’m determined to get at least a little closer to visiting New Orleans, if only via a Crayola-yellow box and 48 ounces of hot cooking oil. We’re talking beignets here, those puffy little squarish French doughnuts made famous by Cafe Du Monde, the French Quarter landmark coffee stand […]
[I] have made countless loaves of banana bread over the years, always hoping for THE one…the one that will end my search for the perfect version. Then, I can just stop trying and always have MY go-to method at the ready. I’ve made banana breads that have ended up too […]
[I] almost opted out of the Black Forest Chocolate Cookies on the Baked Sunday Mornings schedule. I had a number of deadlines and other cooking projects on my docket, and thought I might be too busy. Then, I thought: Too busy to bake cookies? That doesn’t even make sense! Looking […]
[I]’m glad to see long-overlooked vegetables having their day. But…cauliflower — wow! All of a sudden, cauliflower — the albino broccoli, that veggie that for decades was relegated to be the pale, raw dip delivery device on the crudité tray, the roughage round-out in the bag of steamer veggies or […]
[I] love my first paging through a cookbook, particularly one as visually and deliciously stunning as “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking†by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (2008). Usually, this initial “walkthrough†establishes my “must-make†list. Without question, the Butterscotch Pudding Tarts in the book has always been number one. […]
[T]he first food gift I remember was wrapped in aluminum foil and topped with an adhesive-backed bow. Cinnamon rolls…jillions of them, all over the countertops in their silver packets, awaiting Christmastime delivery to family, friends, neighbors. My mom got up in the wee hours of the morning to do this, […]
[O]ccasionally (well, perhaps more often than occasionally), I become mesmerized by little cooking videos on the Internet. You know the ones, where an overhead camera view captures the step-by-step process (often sped up to keep the video short) that makes whatever is being made look like a snap. Maybe sometimes […]
[I]’ve written here recently of the October Northern California wildfires, one of the strangest, saddest times I’ve experienced in a while. For those in the fires’ paths of destruction, it was a sheer nightmare. For those of us on the nearby periphery, it was a surreal time, holding in place […]
[J]ust what are sugarplums, anyway? According to Clement Moore’s classic holiday story poem, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,†children had visions of them dancing in their heads. And sugarplum fairies flit magically in the most well-known and traditional of holiday ballets, “The Nutcracker.†When I have done my own envisioning […]
[S]ometimes, when you do a baking blog, it’s nice to make something a little easier, sans oven. In an arena of lengthy ingredient lists and stages of processes (creaming butter, sifting flour, proofing yeast, zesting citrus, chopping nuts, rolling dough, frosting layers, etc.), a simple cup of hot, warm comfort […]