Food, Photography and Bon Mots
I usually march to the beat of my own drummer, but the crush of interest in recipes for Burnt Basque Cheesecake has piqued my interest. It turns out that Burnt Basque Cheesecake originated in the 1990s as a Tarta de Queso at La Vina Restaurant…
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart…
When I was growing up, “Eat your spinach” was touted as the route to good health. I can still sing the Popeye spinach song, too: “…I’m strong to the finich, cause I eats me spinach.” (Damn. That little earworm will be in my head all…
Cookies are everywhere right now. People are gathering for festive neighborhood cookie exchanges and boxes of carefully-curated homemade cookies are being left on doorsteps around the world. There are a lot of cookie cookbooks available at bookstores now, too–The Great Minnesota Cookie Book, King Arthur…
I know. It’s ANOTHER cranberry recipe. What can I say? I’m on a cranberry binge. It happens. Maybe this binge is a latent expression of my angst over those many years when that wiggly cranberry-sauce-in-a-can graced our Thanksgiving table–you know, the one with the…
This great little cake would look wonderful on your holiday buffet table. It is a Browned Butter Cranberry and Apple Cake. The browned butter is a genius addition to the cake. The whole cranberries in the cake give a surprise burst of tart flavor to…
OK. We missed it. February 23 was National Banana Bread Day. Bummer. Here’s a way to make up for our banana gaffe–combine bananas with your seasonal pumpkin bread. (National Pumpkin Bread Day was October 30. We missed that one, too.) First commercially imported to the…
Six. Years. Old. Who could even imagine it? Won’t you join us for a piece of Salted Halvah Blondie to celebrate Blue Cayenne’s sixth birthday? The birthday cake recipe is from Claire Saffitz’ Dessert Person cookbook and it is sweet and savory and very…
With fall tiptoeing in, it’s tough to find plums now. Luckily, I was able to find some squishy prune plums at my local Farmers Market. Actually, my Farmers Market is a Middle Eastern market that carries a large array of fruits and vegetables, usually…
Ube, aka purple yam, is a tuber native to the Philippines. It is closely related to the sweet potato. Starchy and sweet, the purple yam is widely used in desserts in the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia, but it can also be served as a…
