Laurie Colwin’s Buttermilk Cocoa Cake
Let’s get to the point: buttermilk cocoa cake requires no eggs. Not, mind you, that the eggs, or lack therof, were my motivation for baking buttermilk cocoa cake. What sent me paging through my ragged copy of More Home Cooking was a quart of buttermilk, bought with the best…
Kitchen Note: repairing Pot Au Feu
Why not start with a nice NorCal flower picture? I was trying to take flower pictures the other day, and this seems like a good excuse to use them. Here’s another. You may be wondering flowers have to with pot au feu, or boiled beef. Nothing. They’re just pretty in…
Salsa Meatloaf with Tequila Canned Beans
“There is nothing like a visitor from another continent to confuse you about your own homeland…One night an Indian friend came to dinner…He asked me to help him figure out American cooking, at which point I drew a blank. He said: “I would like to cook some American dishes, but…
Plain Roast Duck
“Every once in a while, even the most sensible person gets a craving for roast duck.” Laurie Colwin, “The Duck Dilemma.” As I crave duck almost continually, I either lack sense (entirely possible) or was French in a past life (a preferable interpretation). People–and by people, I should specify Americans–tie…
Cheese Biscuits
Laurie Colwin calls biscuits “the utility infielder of the culinary world.” As nobody knows less about sports than I do, I take this to mean their virtues are many: taste, simplicity, ease of preparation. You need neither specialty equipment nor fancy ingredients to bake these. You can make them savory, as…
