Recipes

Pastry is fickle. One day you're rolling dough like it's a bolt of white velvet and pull a golden, bubbling dessert from the oven. The results are so fine you briefly consider embroidering "Pie Guru" on your apron. Only you don't know how to sew,...

Just as this blog has turned me into a food snob, it has also made me think more about the whole process of creating a dish. Used to be if I start out making cinnamon buns, that's what I'd end up with. But now? I...

A couple of days ago, I made a variation of my serendipitous nectarine and plum chicken. This time I substituted apples and yellow tomatoes for the plums. It was just as moist and delicious as the original, and I found myself planning side dishes appropriate...

Despite the amber hue of the resulting preserves, this is green tomato marmalade. And no, I didn't use the teeny-tiny yellow tomatoes on the left. They're just there for show. Instead, I used small to mid-sized green tomatoes like the ones below. I figured since I...

It's been quite the week. Over the weekend I co-hosted a 24-hour playwriting contest for the playwright development centre I'm involved with. While my co-host and I ensured the entrants never ran out of coffee or junk food, a dozen writers pounded out scripts on...

The deed is done. I have picked all the tomatoes, uprooted the plants and put the garden to bed. Green tomatoes outnumber the red, but who's counting. I'd like to think the tomatoes didn't want to go any more than I wanted to remove them. I...

I wish you could reproduce this recipe exactly as I made it. But you can't. Unless you mess up your preserves like I did. A few weeks ago, I attempted a homemade mixed-fruit ketchup. But I was so busy "multitasking" I missed the small but crucial...

This blog has ruined me. Forever. Just this week I realized what my family has been accusing me of for years is actually true. I am a food snob. Not the Beluga-Caviar-or-Bust kind of food snob, but a food snob nonetheless. The facts are indisputable. I am...

You'll be happy to know all is forgiven. Seems I'm not the only one to have forgotten my sister's birthday. She read my blog post and called to say I had been keeping very good company in my neglect. Turns out one of her best...

It's official. I'm a Bad Sister. Capital letters earned. This post is a public apology to my sister Robin with the hopes that sincere groveling and pretty pictures illustrating the possible Make-Up Cake will help. My blunder? I forgot my sister's birthday. Totally and completely. Now, forgetting a...