bread « A Woman Sconed

Bread of the Month: Rounding out a country loaf

By rahoward, on March 26th, 2017

I baked bread today. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Some of you did way more, I’m sure, and I commend you. But my country loaf was a commitment of four hours of work (and wait) or more, begun before it was light.

You have to resign to this commitment to make . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Rounding out a country loaf

Bread of the Month: Expecting (big things from) a Dutch baby

By rahoward, on February 1st, 2017

I won’t say I was anticipating a Dutch baby almost as much as a real one because that wouldn’t be true. First off, I have no anticipation for a real one; second off, as excited as I was to make a Dutch baby, I’m sure the thrill level would fall far shorter than the usual . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Expecting (big things from) a Dutch baby

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

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: Spicing up a baked doughnut

By rahoward, on October 13th, 2016

I know that I’m not the only one who associates doughnuts with Halloween, although I suppose I could associate doughnuts with anything, given a chance. Sunset magazine also pondered the connection between the traditionally fried treat and our favorite fall holiday. In an online article, Sunset reminisced on issues of the magazine from the ‘50s, . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Spicing up a baked doughnut

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: Mastering great garlic bread

By rahoward, on June 30th, 2016

I’ve eaten a lot of good garlic bread, even making some myself (often an herb-infused-in-olive oil version), but I had not eaten GREAT garlic bread until I sat down at the table of Liboria Salerno (for more about her, please see blog entry, “Presenting Pavlova to a ballerina” of 6/16). The bread was toasted to . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Mastering great garlic bread

Bread of the Month: Crafting a creamy cornbread

By rahoward, on April 24th, 2016

I believe in good recipes, ,those tried-and-true reliables we turn to when we want something we know we can count on. I have a few of these now in the cornbread realm, but, I’ll be honest, when it comes to cornbread, I’m always open to a new variation or version. Next to biscuits, cornbread is . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Crafting a creamy cornbread

Bread of the Month: Testing the wings of a dough dove

By rahoward, on March 26th, 2016

I had not considered the obvious parallels of birds and bread and lightness and flight until I made a bird out of bread recently. I had no choice but to make a bird out of bread recently when, in search of an annual Easter bread, I landed on a creature called Columba di Pasqua, . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Testing the wings of a dough dove

“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