BOOKSHELF « A Woman Sconed

Bread of the Month: Looking to a ‘kids' cookbook for baguettes

By rahoward, on August 31st, 2021

I sort of stopped paying attention to kids’ animated movies (Disney Pixar, etc.) after I saw “Ratatouille” in 2007. The level of artistic excellence in this film brought it to another level. And its theme of following one’s passions no matter what made it seem as appropriate for adults as children (even more . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Looking to a ‘kids’ cookbook for baguettes

Cookie of the Month: Comforting with softness and sprinkles

By rahoward, on July 31st, 2021

Nearly every grocery store I’ve ever entered has had some version of a Lofthouse cookie. It seems to be standard to carry these ultra-soft, ultra-sweet vanilla cookies topped with fluffy frosting in an array of pastel colors, embellished with a finish of sprinkles.

I’ll admit that I’m neither much of a frosting nor . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Comforting with softness and sprinkles

Bread of the Month: Feeling fully corny with muffins

By rahoward, on July 31st, 2021

Around the end of May, my usual love and admiration for all things corn amped up a bit.

I mean, I’ll put corn in anything, but I took it to an extra corny level as corn season approached, exploring recipes related to my favorite vegetable. Working ahead on my column for Kansas Country . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Feeling fully corny with muffins

Bread of the Month: Oiling up an herb-y scone

By rahoward, on June 30th, 2021

Sometimes, all the planets (or ingredients and time of the year) align in order to make the right recipe. I was recently thumbing through my original favorite scone book, “Biscuits and Scones,” (Clarkson N. Potter; 1988) by Elizabeth Alston. You would think I had made every recipe in the book, but far . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Oiling up an herb-y scone

Cookie of the Month: Snazzing up the snickerdoodle

By rahoward, on June 29th, 2021

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 cheerleader and homecoming . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Snazzing up the snickerdoodle

Cookie of the Month: Taking lemon bars to tart level

By rahoward, on April 30th, 2021

Lemon bars bring up good memories…they were among the first treats I ever prepared and took to share with others. I was a freshman in high school, in Latin class (yes, Latin…do they teach it anymore?), and since we were (surprisingly) a small group, we often got permission to bring and share goodies, . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Taking lemon bars to tart level

Bread of the Month: Tossing strawberries into muffins

By rahoward, on April 25th, 2021

One would assume my April making of Strawberry Banana Muffins came out of a seasonal bent. Strawberries, though found year-round, are often on the docket of spring-to-summer baking projects, coming into prominence as early as April in California. But, to be honest, my muffins came almost completely from a need to use up . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Tossing strawberries into muffins

Bread of the Month: Crowning cinnamon rolls

By rahoward, on February 15th, 2021

My mother’s basic yeast roll recipe, I knew, had the potential for versatility. From it, she herself made lofty loaves, giant fluffy dinner rolls, gooey cinnamon rolls and those irregularly shaped little planks — cut with a sharp knife from a huge bowlful of raised dough and deep-fried — that she called “skunks,” . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Crowning cinnamon rolls

Cookie of the Month: Seeking peace, via chocolate

By rahoward, on January 31st, 2021

In a year like the last, in a month like the last, what is (still) really needed is some kind of peace. Something to settle us, even momentarily, into a state of calm and content, lifting our worries and maybe even providing a bit of hopeful bliss.

Enter Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies, . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Seeking peace, via chocolate

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

“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