Miscellaneous Items

Wacky Cake Revisited

April 19, 2021

As more people are vaccinated and lockdowns lift, social life is gradually resuming. People are once more gathering and eating together. Sooner or later, you may be invited someplace, and you may be asked to bring a dessert. Many people, rightly or not, find the entire business of baking anxiety-inducing….

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Lamb with Spring Vegetables might more aptly be titled: how to save dinner when you buy the wrong ingredients. Which is what yours truly did. Not the original ingredients. I stared at the recipe I’d meant to cook for a while, then at what I actually bought. Dinner needed cooking….

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So, I had my first Covid vaccine. I have lived to tell the tale. My insurer offered appointments online or by telephone. The web was impossible. The phone was little better: when I could get through at all, I waited on hold for hours. This is not overstatement. A few…

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Pictures

February 23, 2021

I had a tooth yanked, and despite antiobiotics, got sick. So, here are some photographs, because who knows when I’ll be well enough to produce a post. Baking, from a post that never happened. Fresh currants. I was all hot on giving a recipe for scones, but then realized these…

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Chicken Liver Mousse

December 21, 2020

We can all agree this holiday season isn’t the merriest. Covid 19 has decimated the population, wrecked the economy, and generally wrought havoc in a shockingly short time. Offering up some fancy dish along the lines of foie gras feels pretty tone deaf…kinda like suggesting $600 is enough to help…

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Greetings from your hostess…

December 19, 2020

Apologies for the radio silence. The IK has been contending with a protracted bout of ill health. (Not covid. Just her usual problems.) While a post is readied in the background, here are a few photos for your pre-holiday entertainment. It rained last week. With any luck, it will rain…

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A bap, if you are wondering, is a Scottish breakfast roll. The recipe below comes from Elizabeth David’s English Bread And Yeast Cookery, published in 1977. David, never one to mince words, rails against the state of English bread. If your copy has American notes by culinary historian Karen Hess,…

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As I write, relief has given way to exhaustion. I can’t pretend I supported the outgoing political administration or the values they represent. But this is a food blog, not a political one, and if you’re here, you want a break from politics. So let’s talk game hens. And barley….

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Pretty Pictures

November 2, 2020

I don’t know about you, but if I read the word “comforting” one more time in a culinary context, I may throw a daubiere. At the moment the very idea of stew, maraconi and cheese, polenta, or any other thick, hot dish of food makes me ill. I suspect many…

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Apple Cider Muffins

October 24, 2020

Last year I was reading a cookbook that gave a recipe for baked apple cider doughnuts. Not fried, leaving you with gallons of used lard to somehow unload. Have you ever read a cookbook that told you what to do with used cooking oil? Me either. Anyway. My husband, he…

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