A Woman Sconed

Scone of the Month: Dreaming of (straw)berries and cream

By rahoward, on May 24th, 2020

Sometimes I make scones for special occasions. Sometimes the scones — and their accompaniments — are special occasions. The month of May, as well as a good dose of “Downton Abbey,” had kept teatime heavily on my mind and on my radar, although I’m never very far from scones and related recipes.

Sometimes . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Dreaming of (straw)berries and cream

Riffing on a mother’s love for rhubarb

By rahoward, on May 9th, 2020

Of all the things my mother loved, high on her list was (of all things!) rhubarb. She grew the stuff herself ( of course), and the huge plants seemed to inhabit a planetary space of their own in the garden. The long pinkish-red stalks, the dark-green, flouncing elephant ear-sized leaves, seemed to . . . → Read More: Riffing on a mother’s love for rhubarb

Cookie of the Month: Dusting up celebratory tradition

By rahoward, on May 4th, 2020

I never needed a wedding (or any special occasion) to enjoy a Mexican wedding cookie. Just eating one of these buttery little orbs, its crumbly texture dusted with the cooling sweetness of confectioner’s sugar, was cause alone for celebration.

Long a fan of this cookie, a tradition in Mexico (and other places) at . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Dusting up celebratory tradition

Cookie of the Month: ‘Testing’ chocolate chip recipes

By rahoward, on April 28th, 2020

I’m pretty sure my baking life began with chocolate chip cookies. They (and their M&M variation) are the first I remember my mom making, my sister and I lying on the kitchen linoleum to take in that distinctive warm, vanilla-toffee aroma as my mother fanned the giant cookie sheet back and forth to . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: ‘Testing’ chocolate chip recipes

Scone of the Month: Sensing the way with lemons, thyme

By rahoward, on April 22nd, 2020

I wrote recently of an inspiring book documenting a year in an Irish garden. Between it, the current stay-at-home orders and my own spring fever, I’ve been spending more time out back, with my trees and plants, in a bleary-eyed, sun-induced kind of green-fogged nature dream. In my meditative times amid my plants . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Sensing the way with lemons, thyme

Scone of the Month: Sheltering with whole wheat, ‘nutty’ oats

By rahoward, on March 30th, 2020

Earlier this month, I celebrated Ireland through a molasses biscuit/cookie recipe I found in “The Little Irish Baking Book” (St. Martin’s Press; 1995), a charming work by the late Ruth Isabel Ross.

Sometimes you fall under the spell of someone at the right time. Though I’d had Ross’s cookbook for a few years . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Sheltering with whole wheat, ‘nutty’ oats

Paying cabbage its due

By rahoward, on March 24th, 2020

On the list (which is long) of vegetables that are underrated, we come to one with whom I’ve had a long relationship. The lowly cabbage, the stuff of children’s stories and children’s toys, the butt of many a “bubble-and-squeak” joke, the bad guy (growing up) for many years merely boiled to bulk up . . . → Read More: Paying cabbage its due

Cookie of the Month: Hunting an Irish ‘biscuit’

By rahoward, on March 17th, 2020

I can certainly be accused of “procrastibaking” that “practice” of baking when you should (“should”?) 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 “esca-baking” (you heard . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Hunting an Irish ‘biscuit’

Scone of the Month: Cheering almonds, cherries and sour cream

By rahoward, on February 24th, 2020

I went on a wander when getting ready to make my next monthly scone. What I had in mind was a scone with plump, tart-sweet dried cherries, of the kind one would make a pie (in their fresh form). Building from that, I wanted a scone made rich and moist with sour cream . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Cheering almonds, cherries and sour cream

Cookie of the Month: Feeling the (red-hot) love via bars

By rahoward, on February 12th, 2020

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, too, that I . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Feeling the (red-hot) love via bars

“People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.”
--M.F.K. Fisher

"It was in a yellow limestone church in Stockdale, Kansas, a crossroads town, that I sat dreaming during summer Sunday sermons, not of heaven or hell, but of the good dinner to come."
--Clementine Paddleford