Breakfast, Lunch, Tea is one of my favourite cookbooks, written by Rose Carrarini. I love the quiet wholesomeness that she evokes through her food. I was lucky enough a few years ago to visit Paris and have a piece of carrot cake at her restaurant, Rose Bakery. I think we found it just as they …
Category Archives: kitchen experiments
12 eggs
One of the qualities I admire most is elegance. Women who walk like they have a tea cup balanced on their head, the slope of a swan’s neck, the way water pours out of a tall glass pitcher….these things are elegant to me. One thing I like even more than elegance is when it is …
A cookie, times three
My lovely friend S gave me homemade cookie mix for Christmas. It’s a great gift, because it’s an excuse to bake and then I get a large Mason jar to store dried lentils in afterwards. It was originally a recipe for “classic sugar cookies” but since I have a belligerent streak, and it was going …
A new year
I collect recipes like some women collect shoes. There are cookbooks everywhere in our home: standing in rows on the shelves, piled on side tables, wedged wherever there is room. Mostly they are mine, but there are always a few on loan from the library. There are binders and folders of recipes printed from blogs, …
The bare necessities
There are some food items that I must, must have in the house to feel safe and prepared for anything – unexpected dinner guests, the end of the world, emotional eating binge, whatever. And here they are: 1. Frozen green peas. They go with everything! And they look so happy, nestled together in a bowl, …
Raison d’etre
My mother used to buy nice clothes and hardly wear them because she wanted to keep them in good condition. Then they’d go out of style, and when we would be cleaning the closet trying to purge it of unnecessary and unworn items, we’d keep them, just in case they came back in style (and …
Schmear!
My friend asked me where the muffins went – I’m getting there! In the meantime, I have been making things to schmear on muffins. It’s ten days to Christmas, and since buying gifts is so pre-recession, I have been puttering away in the kitchen making little jars of yummies. I have never done any sort …
If you can’t stand the heat
Getting pizza dough to rise a little faster by putting it on the furnace. Dooo dooo dooooo….
A couple of weeks ago I cooked some red lentils for an Indian stew. I had some leftover lentils, and as I peered into the sloshy mess in the pot, I thought, “What could I do with you, Sloshy?” Muffins. Heck yes. So I tipped the lentils into the blender and whirled it until smooth, …