[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 […]
One would assume my April making of Strawberry Banana Muffins came out of a seasonal bent. Strawberries, though found year-round, are often on the docket of spring-to-summer baking projects, coming into prominence as early as April in California. But, to be honest, my muffins came almost completely from a need […]
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 […]
[S]ummer means iced tea — more than any drink — for me. I’ll take a tall glass of a plain black or green tea, but a good flavored iced tea — naturally flavored — like mango, mint, hibiscus or berry adds flavor and variety to the refreshment. I also love […]
[D]id you know there is a recipe for fool? And it’s so simple! Almost too simple, so that you almost want to pass it by (as I have, many times). Something that easy (and oddly named) certainly cannot be very good. The first recipes I saw for fools — desserts […]
[S]ometimes, it’s good to see red. Strawberry red, that is. Spring months usher in that beautiful ruby across California fields and farmers market tables. This year, with all the rain, the berries are big, beautiful and bodacious, and you make room in your life/schedule/oven/fridge for any and all ways to […]
“[O]n a table cluttered with empty cups stands a small typewriter with a sheet of pink paper stuck in the roller. Although at the moment the page is utterly blank, I am convinced that someday, there will be a message for me there. I am waiting.†— Jean-Dominique Bauby, “The […]
[B]ack in the day, which is really only an arm-length back, a generation or two, ladies “put up” vegetables and fruits in an ongoing summertime ritual as the produce came to fruition in their gardens and orchards. By fall, cellar shelves were agleam with shining jars of jewel colors, the […]
Long ago, my heart fell into a doughnut hole — I have yet to retrieve it. I don’t want to. We are meant to be lost to some passions. My love for doughnuts began as a child or, perhaps before. I was the daughter of a man whose first job […]