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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I can certainly be accused of “procrastibaking†that “practice†of baking when you should (“shouldâ€?) 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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
The holidays are over, and yet I hang onto them. I always reluctantly enter the Christmas season, but by the time it comes then goes, I’m so overtaken and in love with the holidays that I mourn hard when that time is over. I even love the stress of the […]
It’s been colder than usual this winter. I’ll use that (or any) excuse to fire up the oven, morning, noon or night. The side benefits of baking are warming up the house (and spirit) and perfuming the air with something good. [I] came across a recipe in Elizabeth Alston’s “Biscuits […]
Amazing, when a recipe can restore one’s faith…in oneself, in taking risks, in trying something new, despite doubts. I tried a recipe recently that, by my accounts, seemed not only unlikely to work but definitely would not work under my hands (even with AWS’s experience at cooking and baking, she […]
Every holiday season, even as I bake cookies and make candy, my mind is never very far from cinnamon rolls. [I]’ve written here before (in my blog post of 12/17) of my mom’s cinnamon roll-making, nearly every Christmas for most of my childhood and beyond, the hours (beginning before any […]