Food, Photography and Bons Mots
The plan was for Juliet, a scary and wicked witch last year, to be Juliet Sparrow, the brave pirate, this year, but, blimey!, we had to scuttle that plan. All the pirate hats were way too big. Halloween Plan B: Here’s Juliet, the Sweet Sea…
Damn! It is almost November and Blue Cayenne almost missed celebrating October as National Caramel Month. What was I thinking? The only excuse I can think of is that I’ve been in a sugar-induced stupor for the last couple of weeks. With Halloween…
My good friend Sarah and I have been taking cooking classes at Sur La Table in Costa Mesa. (Sarah is the pretty lady in the middle holding what is left of a tray of minced chicken lettuce cups). What fun! Our most recent class…
Elaine’s fettuccine alfredo. If it was good enough for Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, this fettuccine alfredo recipe is worth a try. (Kennedy-Onassis said it was “terrific, ” by the way.) As recipes go, this is a simple one. Like so many gourmet dishes, the magic is in…
Last night, a group of old friends and I got together at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts to see the Carole King musical Beautiful. It was a snap-your-fingers kind of show, one that made you laugh out loud and…
I love fall. I love the crisp cool edge that creeps into the mornings. I love the changing colors of the leaves on my Japanese Maple. I love the songs of autumn. If you need a little fall “fix,” here is a great rendition of…
I have a brunch coming up next week and I’ve been experimenting with breakfast stratas (Is that the correct plural for strata? My spell checker is being a little edgy about the “s”.) There are, I’m finding, a lot of mediocre strata recipes…
The vocabulary word for today is umami. Now don’t go getting all “low energy” on me. I really don’t want to see any of you putting your heads down on your desks and hyperventilating like this is just too hard. …
Is there a support group for compulsive cookbook buyers? Hundreds of cookbooks share my office bookshelves with my collection of history and political science books from my thirty-two year teaching career and my growing collection of photography books. My history books are sacred possessions but I’m…
There I was, like a jilted bride ditched at the altar, clutching a huge bouquet of leafy emerald green sweet basil and wondering what the heck to do next. Believe me, I had no plans for any major cooking projects using basil…
