[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 […]
[I] would wager that, in the spring, when grocery shoppers across this country get a hankering for strawberry shortcake, strawberry pie, strawberry…anything, that don’t give a moment’s thought to the fact that most of the strawberries they’re buying come from the productive fields of California, from Oxnard to Watsonville. My […]
Over the years, I’ve been known to eat a graham cracker or two. Actually, that’s an understatement. Graham crackers are as much of a staple in my home as flour, butter and coffee. My bedtime snack is often a graham cracker smeared with nut butter. The crackers (a childhood favorite), […]
My first snickerdoodle was given to me by a primary schoolmate, not much older than I. The cookie was pale golden perfection, much like its baker, who was, despite her young years, full of enviable poise, confidence and beauty (who later in high school became, of course, quite popular, a […]
Somewhere between light and dark, summer and autumn, the living and the dead, lies a season long honored and celebrated. As the veil between this world and the next thins, the days shorten into a period of long hours of darkness. Somewhere between a cookie and scone, lies something called […]
Give me coffeecake — or anything streusel — if I’m given a choice of cakes. Granted, I don’t usually make coffeecake as my birthday cake (it’s not “festive†enough), but if there was only one cake I could have, that would be it. Buttery vanilla cake, laced with layers of […]
I can certainly be accused of “procrastibaking†that “practice†of baking when you should (“shouldâ€?) be doing something else (I’m also guilty of its flipside — procrastinating on getting baking projects done). But in that same vein, I also fall under the spell of what I call “escape baking†or […]
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 […]
The name Vincent Price, to most people ,immediately conjures something at the minimal spooky or sinister, at the most the stuff of nightmares. For decades, Price (who died in 1993), with his moody ominous presence (in the characters he portrayed) and THAT VOICE that was at once irresistible and shiver-inducing, […]
Rarely a month passes that I don’t make a biscuit of some kind. They are simply my favorite bread, probably because they are so simple to make (and comforting to eat). I’ve been celebrating the scone all year with recipes each month and decided to honor the biscuit in September, […]