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Meringue Madness and Mini Pavlovas
Along with lots of lazy porch time, beautiful, hot weather, and delicious cocktails with friends, I’ve become sort of obsessed with making the perfect mini pavlovas this summer. This spring I was searching the baking books at our library for something I now cannot remember. To be precise, I was lost in the library. I thought I was in the section for cookbooks in this library that was new to me, but there wasn’t a cookbook in sight. It was all old baking books. Nine months I’ve been here and I still haven’t quite figured out how our library is organized. Surrounded by thick old tomes, some of which even…
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Mini Cassata Cakes
My mom absolutely loved to entertain. She often reminded me of The Barefoot Contessa, cooking and decorating and making people feel special with her food and kindness, and making it look so easy. When we lived in Denver my parents entertained a lot. They set their tall, old ice box up as a bar, fitted the dining room table with the extra leaves and filled it with scrumptious appetizers and finger foods, my dad’s paté, smoked salmon, warm bread dip & anti-pasta trays. So many choices. I loved it when the house began to warm up with friends and neighbors. More often than not, snow drifted down outside on a chilly fall or winter…
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Strawberries with Brown Sugar & Sour Cream
Every year for the past few years we have picked a bounty of strawberries from our own garden. And each year seems better than the last. I’ve said it before, the Hoods are my absolute favorite. Like any homegrown fruit or vegetable they beat the store bought kind any day. To me they taste better than any candy, and they absolutely ruin me for strawberries the rest of the year. Even Lily and Jasper are becoming strawberry snobs and hardly touch any I buy from the store. For a gardener with kids, strawberries are such a fun crop, as they grow really well in our climate, and the kids can…
