Bake with abandon!
Either Way Marinara Sauce Pardon me for bragging, but this sauce is pretty good. Okay. It’s really good. How do I know? Recipe tester feedback. They liked it. A lot. This recipes from my first book, The Messy Baker: More than 75 Delicious Recipes from …
Last year my garden burst with lavender. This spring, only a few leggy plants survived. Too little snow. Too much thawing. Too much freezing. Or maybe the plants sensed my neediness and fled. I need lavender this summer, and lots of it. For the esthetics, …
It has snowed so much lately my shovel and I are on a first name basis. It sees my boots coming and says, “Hello, Charmian.” I nod, pull my hat down over my ears and grab the chirpy shovel in a choke hold. Together, Shovel …
Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Naomi Duguid about her award-winning book Burma: Rivers of Flavor (Random House ©2012). In April, the book won the IACP award for Culinary Travel, and just last week was awarded Gold by Taste Canada —The Food Writing Awards …
Growing up, my mom’s homemade grape jam appeared on the table in recycled baby food jars with a paraffin wax seal. While the jam bubbled and the jars boiled, she melted bricks of wax on the stove top in an old tomato juice can with …
I’d officially like to apologize to apricots. For years now, I’ve been the mean team captain who always calls dibs on her friends and chooses the popular kids first, leaving the smaller classmates kicking the grass with their yet-to-be-broken-in sneakers and pretending that being picked …
Muhammara (pronounced moo-hahm-MRAH) is a classic Mediterranean dish. It’s a dip. It’s a spread. It’s addictive. You have been warned. Pitas are the authentic accompaniment, but I’ve been gobbling muhammara on homemade piadinas to no ill effect. Don’t let the simplicity of the dish fool …
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. …
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. …