Cakes

    Cutting the lemon the knife leaves a little cathedral: alcoves unguessed by the eye that open acidulous glass to the light; topazes riding the droplets, altars, aromatic facades.                     –Pablo Neruda   I’ve always…

  Carrots improve your eyesight. Right? Therefore, if you are going to have a sweet, decadent dessert, you are somewhat forgiven for eating carrot cake. It’s a health food, for heaven’s sake! This line of argument works for me. If carrot desserts seem odd to…

  I was shopping in Sprouts recently and found myself following the wonderful scent of fresh nectarines wafting across the store when I ran into a young man with a man bun who was on the same mission. “I could smell the nectarines from across…

According to Chinese mythology,  Goddess Xi Wang Mu grew immortality fruits in her garden. Most sources say they were peaches. Some say they were cherries. (Both are stone fruits.) Whatever immortality fruit it was, there was one very big problem. The fruits ripened every thousand…

  No. This is not a photo of Bjork. This is a photo of Anna Pavlova, the Russian prima ballerina after whom New Zealand’s national dessert was named.  (Disclaimer: The Australians and the New Zealanders have been coming to culinary blows for years over credit for…

Homer (of The Odyssey not of The Simpsons) loved them. He called pears “a gift of the gods.” By the time the Renaissance came along, Europeans were even more in love with pears. The powerful Medici dukes, for example, had fruit gardens with expansive collections of…

    This recipe recently appeared on a website that I read regularly, David Lebovitz’ site. I’m a sucker for a great review and Lebovitz prefaces this recipe by writing that this cake is his “desert island” recipe, the one cake he would choose were…

  I am an admirer of pastry chef and cookbook author Dorie Greenspan. Julia Child chose her to write Baking with Julia. Her credentials can’t get any better than that. Greenspan writes a prominent food blog that you might enjoy reading, Dorie Greenspan’s Food Blog and…

I love cheesecake. For many years, I celebrated the end of a successful school year by sharing this cheesecake with my Advanced Placement European History students after they took their tests. I’ve taken it to my friends at my pup’s veterinary hospital. It has been…

I am dreading the moment this season when the stone fruits disappear from the farmers markets. Luckily, as I was looking for a new plum recipe to use the plums I bought at Sunday’s market, I came across Marian Burros’ classic plum torte recipe. What…