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Tomato Tasks

Sunday, September 9th, 2007

So this is how I spent most of my Sunday afternoon: cutting plum tomatoes in half, scooping out their gooey ribs and seeds with my fingers and roasting the hell out of them. All the tomatoes in this basket came from one ridiculously fecund plant, a fecundity I rather resented about [...]

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An Artist Bakes the Ginger Cake

Saturday, September 8th, 2007

I don’t have an artistic molecule in my body but I’m a great appreciator. My friend Stella — with whom God was generous with artistic gifts — baked this cake soon after I posted Sylvia Thompson’s recipe. I adore the way she finished it, converting the suggested dusting of confectioner’s sugar into [...]

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A Recipe ( and Book) to Treasure

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

“The cake has become perhaps the most valued in my repertory,” wrote Sylvia Thompson about her Fresh Ginger Cake in one of my most treasured cookbooks: “Feasts and Friends.” “It’s easy and foolproof and can be handed round in not much more than three-quarters of an hour after I’ve thought to make [...]

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No-Souffle Tuesday

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

Between the heat and the holiday, souffle-making fell off the To Do list last week, but I have several interesting recipes to test and hope to have one to share next week.
I saw on the Chez Panisse website that lucky diners there recently got to enjoy a corn and chanterelles [...]

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A Charlie Brown Apple Tree

Saturday, September 1st, 2007

At the back of our property we have two small apple trees: Pink Pearl’s fruit is as luscious as it is beautiful, while No-Name’s apples are cute but sadly deficient in the flavor department. So guess which tree managed to birth all of TWO apples this year and which one produced more [...]

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Cool Tool

Friday, August 31st, 2007

I found this overgrown micro-zester last week at my local kitchen shop and have been merrily grating cheeses and citrus rinds at every opportunity. It requires a little restraint when used on lemon skins, lest its Big Boy teeth slice down into the bitter pith, but basically it does a splendid [...]

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Souffle Tuesday: Pears A-Plenty

Monday, August 27th, 2007

These Comice pears on the tree just outside our kitchen window won’t be ready for picking for another few weeks, but good pears are beginning to appear in the markets, which means I’ll soon be making one of my favorite dessserts: Poire William Souffle with Fresh Pear Slices.The recipe is an adaptation [...]

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Ugly but Tasty

Sunday, August 26th, 2007

My dislike of carrots holds only a weak candle to my abhorrence of peas, but if Bugs Bunny’s favorite snack should vanish from this earth, I’d shed no tears. The Resident Gardener, of course loves carrots and insists on growing them — not just the basic orange variety but also yellow and [...]

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Sunday Supper, Italian-style

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

La Posta Restaurant, Santa Cruz
I’m still purring with delight at the memory of last Sunday’s dinner: a four-course, set-menu meal served family-style at La Posta in Santa Cruz. Describing the menu makes the food sound prosaic: tomato bruschetta, followed by a zucchini frittata, chicken caciatore as the [...]

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Souffle Tuesday: Showcasing Fresh Thyme

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Souffle sur un plat
Four varieties of thyme are thriving in our vegetable garden right now –and all of them work well with goat cheese. To showcase the lemon thyme I took an unusual souffle recipe from the lovely cookbook by Sally Clarke of Clarke’s — [...]

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