[I] would wager that, in the spring, when grocery shoppers across this country get a hankering for strawberry shortcake, strawberry pie, strawberry…anything, that don’t give a moment’s thought to the fact that most of the strawberries they’re buying come from the productive fields of California, from Oxnard to Watsonville. My […]
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, […]
I , like many others who have been baking our way through the pandemic, have turned to my sourdough starter more than ever. Dear Petrie (yes, with an “eâ€), my beloved fellow of the fridge, offspring of “Spike†(my friend Elaine’s starter), has served me well for several years and […]
Sometimes I am a rebel. When the rally cry is pumpkin spice, I start to think about sweet potatoes. Or should I call them garnet yams, which is what the red-skinned, orange-fleshed creatures most of us call sweet potatoes really are (the jewel sweet potato is another version of the […]
Amid the dominating voices (and recipes) screaming “PUMPKIN SPICE!†and “APPLES!†this fall are the softer whispers of two other seasonal flavors: figs and pistachios. I’m seeing a lot of fresh fig recipes as figs come into their full ripening, and pistachios, too, are an early fall crop. The two […]
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 […]
Give me coffeecake — or anything streusel — if I’m given a choice of cakes. Granted, I don’t usually make coffeecake as my birthday cake (it’s not “festive†enough), but if there was only one cake I could have, that would be it. Buttery vanilla cake, laced with layers of […]
Sometimes I make scones for special occasions. Sometimes the scones — and their accompaniments — are special occasions. The month of May, as well as a good dose of “Downton Abbey,†had kept teatime heavily on my mind and on my radar, although I’m never very far from scones and […]
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 […]