A Woman Sconed

Scone of the Month: Ending the year on a sourdough note

By rahoward, on December 28th, 2020

I , like many others who have been baking our way through the pandemic, have turned to my sourdough starter more than ever. Dear Petrie (yes, with an “e”), my beloved fellow of the fridge, offspring of “Spike” (my friend Elaine’s starter), has served me well for several years and especially these past . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Ending the year on a sourdough note

Rounding up a variety plate of fudge

By rahoward, on December 15th, 2020

My late Grandma Mae was the first and one of the only people I knew who made fudge from scratch. She was more known and revered for her peanut brittle (see my blog post of December 2010), but along with her famed peanut confection, laid out in dishes every year were also samplings . . . → Read More: Rounding up a variety plate of fudge

Cookie of the Month: Remembering a recipe box favorite

By rahoward, on December 7th, 2020

The longer you are around, the more holidays become about memories and missing those who are no longer here.

I could write endlessly about how much I miss my mom at this, a second Christmas season without her. The depth of this loss, in particular, is bottomless. She was a part of everything . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Remembering a recipe box favorite

Cookie of the Month: Boosting flavor in a cranberry slice

By rahoward, on November 29th, 2020

I am big fan of slice-and-bake cookies. Their make-ahead and make-as-you-need-them approach makes me happy in a holiday season crowded with recipes and goody-making possibilities. I’m also a big fan of shortbread, and if the shortbread comes in slice-and-bake form (as many of them do), I’m even more enamored.

I had saved a . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Boosting flavor in a cranberry slice

Scone of the Month: Speaking of sweet potatoes

By rahoward, on November 21st, 2020

Sometimes I am a rebel. When the rally cry is pumpkin spice, I start to think about sweet potatoes.

Or should I call them garnet yams, which is what the red-skinned, orange-fleshed creatures most of us call sweet potatoes really are (the jewel sweet potato is another version of the orange-interiored…for a great . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Speaking of sweet potatoes

Cookie of the Month: Looking to THE cookie

By rahoward, on November 7th, 2020

I first learned of black and white cookies the way many Americans who don’t live in New York (where the cookie is well-known), learned about the black and white cookie — from a “Seinfeld” episode. Jerry Seinfeld, waiting with his friend Elaine on her quest for a chocolate babka at a bakery, gets . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Looking to THE cookie

Scone of the Month: ‘Souling’ a simple cake

By rahoward, on October 30th, 2020

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 a “soul cake,” . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: ‘Souling’ a simple cake

Taking the cake(s)

By rahoward, on October 26th, 2020

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 year has been . . . → Read More: Taking the cake(s)

Cookie of the Month: Flaking the familiar

By rahoward, on October 13th, 2020

I miss a lot of things about the gym. I used to go a few times a week, and now, not only are we unable to go to gyms because of the pandemic, the very gym I spent a number of years sweating in filed for bankruptcy. It wasn’t much, this no-frills gym, . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Flaking the familiar

Scone of the Month: Befriending figs and pistachios

By rahoward, on October 4th, 2020

Amid the dominating voices (and recipes) screaming “PUMPKIN SPICE!” and “APPLES!” this fall are the softer whispers of two other seasonal flavors: figs and pistachios. I’m seeing a lot of fresh fig recipes as figs come into their full ripening, and pistachios, too, are an early fall crop. The two are found all . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Befriending figs and pistachios

“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