This year I got the jump on holiday cookie baking in November. This wasn’t just me working early for cookie’s sake. I had a deadline in mid-November for a column I was writing on slice-and-bake cookies for Kansas Country Living, so by late October/early November, I was making cookie doughs […]
Three tastes had been on my mind when I made scones in July — coconut, raspberries and white chocolate. These had, in fact, been on my radar since wintertime, when contemplating scone flavors. This trio of tart berry, soft sweet chocolate and nutty shreds of coconut seemed idyllic together in […]
Certain ingredients create certain sensations, like those whose tastes create the illusion of cool, despite not actually being a lower temperature. Powdered (confectioner’s) sugar is one…a fine dusting of this soft sweetness automatically tempers any sort of sweet — even one as strongly warm-flavored as coffee or chocolate or cinnamon […]
[I]don’t have a lot of experience with mangos, outside of the occasional fresh spear or using frozen chunks (very handy and yummy) for smoothies. Mango is unique in flavor — it is subtle in both taste and texture, iseeming to fuse together peaches, pineapple, melon and citrus. It’s delicious, but […]
“If my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.†— Carrie Fisher [S]ometimes, after a crap-ass year, you just need to have some fun. That is not a terribly positive beginning (was it the term “crap-assâ€?), and I apologize. But I speak the truth in […]
[M]y 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. […]
“To feed your Muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child.” — Ray Bradbury, “Zen in the Art of Wrting: Essays on Creativity” [R]ay Bradbury told me why I am here. He told everyone, but only some of us were listening. I feel […]
If Norma Grubb’s spirit could have been in my kitchen this past Thanksgiving morning (and if her spirit could be anywhere, likely last on her list would be my mad kitchen), she would have been laughing her you-know-what off. I began the day in serious distress, as it was raining, […]