Lemon Polenta Cake
I love this cake. I wanted to find a recipe for a cornmeal cookie when I came across recipes for this classic Italian dessert. I originally printed out Nigella Lawson’s recipe to try, but I didn’t want to pour a lemon syrup over my cake. I just added the lemon right into the batter and ended up with an amazing pound cake with a crumbling texture and lemon kick, that’s incidentally entirely gluten free! I guess I like dense cakes. This one definitely competes... Read More
My Life in a Pie
As soon as Where Women Cook posted their contest for a pieography – your life explained in a pie, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. After walking around with this analogy in my head for a couple weeks here are a few things I know for certain: My life is not a pie as much as a rustic tart, a little bit messy and definitely not put together around the edges. I’ve been self-employed for a decade as a creative professional. It has not been an easy path, but... Read More
Savory meet Sweet. You guys could really get along – Olive Oil Cake
I have a new favorite cake in this world. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t make it for my choice of birthday cakes. Birthdays are for special occasion foods and I’m making this cake WAY too often for it to be a special occasion cake. It’s more of an everyday cake (if there really were such a thing). It’s an eat-another-piece-for-breakfast kind of cake. It’s an I-like-savory-way-more-than-sweets kind of cake. That’s what drew me to it in... Read More
Reasons for Cravings – Plum Tart
I’ve been looking for a reason for my sudden otherwise inexplicable foray into baking so many cakes and pies this season. I had thought it was just the inspiring selections from my always-pushing neighborhood fruit stand guys. These plums were irresistible with their freckles looking like a map of the universe on their glowing purple skin… but that doesn’t really explain it. As I stand by my counter cutting through my bounty I begin feeling the comfort of the... Read More
The City’s Great Street Stalls – making apricot upside down cake
So I live in New York City and one of my first shocks when I started to live here is how truly expensive food is. Not just eating out (which there are too many great options for to choose from) but in the grocery store. Everything is “an arm and a leg” kind of expensive. I’ve made a spaghetti dinner for 6 people and had a grocery bill of over $70 for it! I’m not the kind of girl to waste heirloom tomatoes on spaghetti – that was the bill for my mom’s... Read More
On Inventing – are you willing to fail?
I was once told by a ten year old boy covered in ice cream, (ice cream that was once chocolate, neon blue cotton candy and mango sorbets but had turned to a melting gray blob) that I need to be more inventive. I invent recipes all the time. I’m inventive. Or so I thought. His goatee of smeared ice cream suited the wise smile he gave me when he explained that no – I think about things and if they work in my head I do them – I need to try things that might not... Read More
Brunch Problem Solved – Egg Cups
The age old problem is the same for every dinner party whether at home or in a restaurant kitchen. How do you get all the food done at the same time so people can sit and eat together? I would say the #1 problem with my first draft dinner party menus is over-scheduling either the oven or stove top. The first thing I’m inspired to make generally leads me to more inspirations that use the same cooking method. If I want to make a roasted veggie platter (and I generally always... Read More
Look Ma! I Baked! – savory apple tart
Sometimes I just get antsy. Sometimes I just need to cook something special occasion without having the occasion (because I might not actually have anyone to feed it to). This week has been like that a lot. I have been spending the better part of this week looking for a job – and the rest of it cooking elaborately to ease the stir-craziness of looking for a job. When I came across Elise Bauers’ recipe on Simply Recipes for an Apple Walnut Gorgonzola Tart I practically... Read More
The (almost) Secret Recipe of the (almost) Famous Ginger Snaps
Have you ever noticed if someone calls their dish “famous” it is inevitably a secret recipe? I don’t know why this is so true but it’s an easily observable phenomenon. If it were to preserve the marketability of a recipe brand that would be one thing, but typically no one has actually heard of this “famous” dish – nor is anyone trying to market it. This is the case with my mother’s ginger snaps. A holiday tradition in my... Read More
