Miscellaneous Items

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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As the world grows increasingly disorderly, I find myself seeking refuge in the past. By “the past,” I mean cookbooks. I don’t have a time machine. Let us turn to Britain between the wars. Built during World War II, but not in Britain. Shot several years ago. — It is…

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So, yeah, it’s been entirely too long. I have committed the blogger’s cardinal sin of not posting. I could give all the reasons, but you read the news, don’t you? And the news, it’s very bad. Read it enough, and you will become depressed. Seriously depressed. And if you are…

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Mexicanish Chicken

August 22, 2020

  The New York Times is covering California’s fires, heat wave, and pandemic under the headline “California’s ‘Horrible’ Month.” That sounds about right. Friends are under threat of evacuation. The air is filled with smoke and ash. We were warned our power would be shut off in rolling blackouts between…

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Hummus

June 14, 2020

A  month of silence, and your hostess returns with a recipe that’s simultaneously controversial and lacking in originality. Like you’ve never made hummus before. Seriously, recent events have left me speechless. What was I going to do? Hop online, write a few trite sentences about Black Lives Matter, and start…

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