Bake with abandon!
I had hoped to use the alphabet pasta for something fun. I’d imagined a game of Soup Scrabble with friends or seeing who can find the most cuss words fastest. Instead, I’m cooking a handful of random letters in tinned consommé and calling it dinner. …
The vanilla extract on the left is full of seeds and has a whole pod in the bottle. The vanilla beans on the right are fresh, fragrant and supple enough to knot. Both products are Really Horrible. Seriously. They’re from Really Horrible Enterprises located in Ottawa, ON. …
When I was a kid there were three kinds of salt in my little world: Rock, kosher and table. That was it. The only specialty salt was Morton’s. Their slogan —When it rains, it pours.— gives you an idea of how simple life was back then. …
I am capricious. One day I’ll view a certain cookbook as General Cooking and file it away as such. Then after using it for a while, I realize I’m drawn only to its dessert section and stick it in with the baking books. Only it’s …
This is jar of freshly stained homemade ghee – pronounced GEE. It’s clarified butter pushed to the edge. Done right, it will reward you with golden brown, nutty goodness. Done wrong? Both you and the butter will end up weeping into the compostable waste bin. …
A friend has a theory that my family is part vampire. We are unnaturally pale and live a very, very long time. I am about to disprove this theory. I don’t shrink at the sight of garlic. In fact, I grow it. This is garlic …
Shrove Tuesday doesn’t have to include pancakes. Today is really about gorging on rich foods before the 40-day fast of Lent. Pancakes just happen to be cooked in grease, filled with eggs and topped with more decadence. It’s okay to think beyond the griddle. Any …
What’s happening to me? The minute I went to photograph this dessert I thought, “Rats! I should have made the cobbler in a cast iron frying pan. It would have looked so much more rustic.” Great. It’s not enough that I’m criticized for being a …
If you read my 2012 Culinary Bucket List, you’ll see I have a lot of baking to do. In case a from-scratch cake is on your list, I thought I’d start the new year off with some baking tips I learned from Camilla V. …