BOOKSHELF « A Woman Sconed

Stirring up passion for apple butter

By rahoward, on October 6th, 2017

When I was a kid, I had all the cool chores. I got to shell the peas, gathered to the brim of a bottomless five-gallon paint bucket. I got to guard the rows of cabbages with a swatter, set to strike down any moths fluttering along. I got to lie down on my belly in . . . → Read More: Stirring up passion for apple butter

Finding my fun in ‘Dolly’s Doughnut’

By rahoward, on September 13th, 2017

“If my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.” — Carrie Fisher

Sometimes, after a crap-ass year, you just need to have some fun.

That is not a terribly positive beginning (was it the term “crap-ass”?), and I apologize. But I speak the truth in my feeling. Despite this being . . . → Read More: Finding my fun in ‘Dolly’s Doughnut’

Bread of the Month: Basking in a morning glory muffin

By rahoward, on July 18th, 2017

My mom’s got a thing against muffins. She won’t make them. She won’t eat them. This stems from a traumatic period in her childhood, where her obligations as a member of 4-H pushed her to the brink after years of being chained to an oven, churning out muffin after muffin.

It’s not the taste . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Basking in a morning glory muffin

Chomping at a Welsh rarebit

By rahoward, on March 31st, 2017

It was long ago when I first ran across a recipe for “Welsh rarebit” or “Welsh rabbit,” as it is sometimes called. As a girl who studied cookbooks, I couldn’t have been that old, but I was certainly intrigued and excited by a melty cheese sauce dish that was named for — but contained not . . . → Read More: Chomping at a Welsh rarebit

Bread of the Month: Revering an artist and a Rosca de Reyes

By rahoward, on January 5th, 2017

Beyond some of her work and her unforgettable image — dark-haired, piercing-eyed, flower-crowned — I didn’t know enough about the Mexican artist and icon Frida Kahlo until the 2002 biopic “Frida,” starring Salma Sayek, in a stirring performance examining her life. That movie, for me, ignited an admiration for the artist,who died in 1954 at . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Revering an artist and a Rosca de Reyes

Popcorn and a Movie: Revisiting a ‘Big Night’

By rahoward, on December 15th, 2016

“To eat good food,” says Italian chef Primo in the 1996 film, “Big Night,” “is to be close to God.”

And truthfully, over the 20 years since I first saw this movie, I have said, again and again, that my idea of heaven was the kitchen where Primo, played by Tony Shaloub and his brother, . . . → Read More: Popcorn and a Movie: Revisiting a ‘Big Night’

Bread of the Month: Feeling focaccia at the fingertips

By rahoward, on November 29th, 2016

I have always been able to make sense out of things (somewhat) by writing about them. Even still, lately, I have had trouble writing.

It made no sense and yet perfect sense that on a rainy November evening, while I received the news of a loss of life as close to my own as any, . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Feeling focaccia at the fingertips

Bread of the Month: Braiding a blonde biscuit

By rahoward, on September 30th, 2016

Recipes can come from surprising sources. The backs of boxes or packages, coupon inserts, obscure Internet sites and offbeat cookbooks. If you had told me even a year ago that, upon seeing a copy of “The Disney Princess Cookbook,” (2013) I had gotten for my nieces that I would have not only bought one for . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Braiding a blonde biscuit

Bread of the Month: Puffing up with gougéres

By rahoward, on August 28th, 2016

I’ve long been obsessed with cream puffs. I learned to make them as a child, watching my mother and then whipping them up myself. It’s a strange process, puff-making, strange in its doing and even stranger in its simplicity. I continue to be baffled that the same ingredients, cooked in different ways, yield vastly different . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Puffing up with gougéres

Bread of the Month; Shifting on shortcake

By rahoward, on May 31st, 2016

The strawberry shortcake I grew up with and loved was always more cake than short. That is, a golden vanilla layer cake like those found frosted for birthdays, but without the icing, soft and fluffy, easily absorbent of all the succulent red strawberry juices circulating over and under it.

I think this is the . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month; Shifting on shortcake

“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