Bake with abandon!
The weather has cooled just as I feel squashed against the ceiling of my baking limit. At a time when I can’t face another bag of flour or brick of butter, the overnight temperatures dip to chilly, pull-up-the-blankets digits. I awake to the hum of the furnace, the tip of …
So, Eric Idle came to dinner and was seated beside me. We were going to entertain the other guests with a ripping rendition of The Dead Parrot skit. Only I was so busy thinking up clever tweets I forgot my lines. So I went upstairs to …
Writing a book is a lot like working in theatre. “Hurry up and wait!” is the mantra. You learn your lines (or write them in this case), hit your marks (deadlines) and then wait. For months. You watch the clock, the calendar and your nails …
I’m not one for culinary deception. I have never understood why anyone would slip perfectly good spinach into brownie batter or sneak astringent cauliflower into banana muffins. Not only do the flavours conflict, such subterfuge gives respectable vegetables an inferiority complex. So, let me be perfectly clear. When I …
Developing recipes for unfamiliar culinary tools is a bit like having coffee with someone you met through an online dating site. You’ve memorized their profile, you’ve Googled them to see what others think, and you’ve figured out how to make them like you. But no matter …
Language is funny. It has a way of sliding sideways when you’re not looking, slipping under things or going into hiding. A few years ago, I developed a homemade, bite-sized meatball to wean my husband off the commercial, frozen version he would nuke to the …
Not everyone reads the comments section, so I thought I’d start a separate post to share the conversation I’ve been having with Barbara about chicken stock. Barbara has moved to a small apartment and is re-learning to make stock without $7 stewing hens and a …
These are for my sister. She doesn’t know it yet, but they’ll arrive at her door later today in a box with some pathetic attempt at a heart drawn on the lid. She’s in the middle of the Kitchen Reno from Hell and needs some …
Avgolemono soup might be hard to say but it’s incredibly simple to make. It’s so easy, you can make it when you’re sick and wobbly and barely able to stand without sneezing so hard you knock yourself over. I proved that the other day. Being …