Food
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Preserving A Story
I stood in my steamy kitchen surrounded by glass jars, newly clean and hot from the dishwasher, a huge cauldron-sized pot of boiling water on the stove, and next to it a large saucepan of homemade jam ready for canning. It was about 104º outside on a late July day and it boiled hotter than that inside my non-air-conditioned kitchen, like a sauna, the sweat sticking to my skin. But somehow I didn’t mind at all as the aroma of hot sugary berries bloomed throughout the entire kitchen. It was the first time I’d ever canned or preserved anything and I was both slightly nervous and absolutely excited, like a…
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Flourless Lemon Almond Cake
Some days life calls for cake. For a birthday, a graduation, a special date night, or even if your toilet is in your bathtub, which is where ours is right now because we’re replacing the bathroom floor. Having the one full bathroom ripped apart with a family of four is a little goofy, that’s for sure. So what am I doing? Baking, because the next thing we rip up will be the kitchen floor. Oh the joys of old houses. I love them, but I’m weary of the many disasters one often uncovers when they start to dig under layers to redo things. The bathroom is out of order, boxes of…
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My Favorite Cognac Cocktails
Years ago when Greg and I first moved back to Everett from Georgia, we lived in his dad’s basement for a while. We didn’t have a house, all our stuff was in storage, I had no job, and it was just Dizzy and me hanging out during the week. I spent hours writing every day and in the afternoons I watched cooking shows on the Food Network. One of my favorite’s was the Barefoot Contessa. Her recipes are so easy and delicious and they never go out of style. During one episode, I watched her make a pitcher of Sidecar cocktails for a party she was throwing. I’d never been…
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Living My Life Through Food
Somedays I daydream about living my life through food. And somedays my daydreams come true. This February was like an entire month of celebrating through amazing cuisine for me! If every February was like this, my winter-is-dragging-on blues would never exist! First, I received two gorgeous, completely different, but inspiring cookbooks from awesome people who know my obsession with food. The Forest Feast, Simple Vegetarian Recipes from My Cabin in the Woods, by Erin Gleason is colorful, gorgeous, and full of simple and delicious looking recipes. (I wrote about it in my last post, Making Memories with Cookbooks.) Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel, by Heidi Swanson is almost…
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Making Memories with Cookbooks
I adore cookbooks. I covet them like I do my favorite novels that have been with me over the years, timelining my experiences, my life. Although I love the ease with which I can get recipes off the internet these days, I still will always love cookbooks, the weight of them, how they feel in my hand, the amazing photography and recipes to inspire me. The stories inside them as well as the memories we make with them.
