December 28th, 2011 / comments 2
My first eBook is finished. It’s called Bread and Crackers and it can purchased or borrowed from the Kindle store.
If you don’t have a Kindle, download free software here, so that you can read Bread & Crackers on your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, and Android Phone.
Bread & Crackers is a collection of my bread and cracker recipes and illustrated with my watercolor paintings. The recipes are enriched with memories, food history and musings.
November 30th, 2011 / comments 3
Making sour dough bread from scratch is a long process. Gathering wild yeast and cultivating a sour dough starter takes a week and then it takes another twenty-four hours to make the bread. Active dry yeast from the grocery store reduces the time to a more manageable three to four hours plus the extra half hour it takes to cleanup after kneading the dough and forming the loaves. Breads leavened with baking soda or baking powder, are quicker, but baking bread in the oven requires that I not stray far from the kitchen so that the bread can be taken out of the oven at precisely the right moment. If all these facts make you unwilling to make bread at home, consider the ease and freedom of steamed brown bread. … read moreNovember 25th, 2011 / comments 5
The turkey carcass was precariously perched on a jug of gravy and a bowl half filled with roasted cranberry sauce. Mashed sweet potatoes flavored with chipotle peppers and mashed white potatoes rested side by side in one container and a forlorn slice of pumpkin pie wrapped in plastic sat on a small bowl of gingered whipped cream. After I found the lemon for my tea, I began to deal with the wealth of leftovers by topping the piece of pie with the whipped cream and eating it.
I made run-of-the-mill turkey sandwiches dinner-worthy by making sandwich rolls with the leftover sweet potatoes. These yeast rolls are not difficult to make but need to rise twice before baking so I got started as soon as I’d read the paper and emptied the dishwasher. Here’s how I made them:[/donotprint] … read more
November 2nd, 2011 / comments 5
When I returned on Thursday, from visiting my son in England, the trees were wearing white. I had missed most of the reds and golds of the fall foliage and was looking forward to getting back to Charles, Gracie and my friends. The only shopping I did in Brighton was at small, medium and large grocery stores and at a weekly farmers’ market in the center of the university campus. Welsh cakes, from the Marks & Spencer market in the Brighton train station, along with a bowl of stewed red plums and a pot of Earl Grey tea was my standard breakfast in England. … read more
October 27th, 2011 / comments 8
Halloween is a holiday when imagination runs wild. Whether you are going to a party or a parade, this is the holiday to join the masquerade.
The possibilities are endless – you can present yourself as a superhero or a world leader, a puppy or a princess, a vampire or a bunny rabbit.Halloween treats are everywhere, free when you call out “Trick or Treat” at the home of a friendly neighbor. … read more
October 12th, 2011 / Comments 0
I found concord grapes in the market last weekend and they transported me back to my childhood and Ruby’s grape arbor. Ruby was a gardener and a cook who lived next door.
Concord Grapes Carol Egbert
She showed me how to use small clippers to harvest the bunches of fragrant, purple-black grapes. We sat on her back porch and watched birds feasting on grapes as we separated the ripe grapes from the stems, leaves and spider webs. Ruby always used the grapes we gathered to make enough grape jelly for a winter’s worth of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. … read more
