Found some killer cayenne peppers at Nagy’s Peaches. Upon embarking on the preserving process for drying hot peppers, I looked up how to make a ristra and quickly decided to just string my cayenne peppers with a needle and twine. The guy in the video was extremely adept at tying knots but I was not […]
Lilac Simple Syrup
Lilac bushes take many years to reach full maturity and last only a few days as a cut flower. In my opinion, however – if you exclude roses, they are unrivaled for fragrance and color. So consider either planting one or scope out your neighbors yards. They were traditionally planted next to outhouses because of […]
Chitting Potatoes
They’re not pretty, but the results are sublime. And, if you’ve never tasted freshly dug organic potatoes, you are in for a treat this summer! Why chit? Pre-sprouting your seed potatoes will make for an earlier harvest, give the plants a jump on blight, and prevent pale, elongated, brittle shoots from growing in the bag […]
Homemade Baking Powder
I make my own white stuff. Guess I’m the Walter White of Upper Black Eddy. Homemade Baking Powder!?!?!? I can hear your shocked voices penetrating the internet, “You have got to be kidding!”. That’s what I thought when I first discovered it a few days ago while researching Tea Breads. Although I have no interest […]
Portuguese Olive Oil Cake with Kumquat Chutney
This wonderful olive oil cake is a classic recipe from Portugal. The aroma of oranges and the sea, entwined. Not that there’s shellfish in this cake or anything – I was just trying to wax poetic. Never made it to Portugal or Spain during my European grand tour in 1973. Almost. Pamplona and the running […]
Kumquat Chutney
Challenged myself this past week with looking at light in food photography. Fell in love with chiaroscuro and Scandinavian/Mystic Light styles that are so in voque now. Mood is conveyed with darker colors and light concentrated to draw the eye. Painterly effects reminiscent of Vermeer and Caravaggio are imitated, bringing back memories of my time […]
Year End
Distractions. They’re everywhere, lurking in wait to devour every minute of our day. Agatha, Virginia, Sylvia, and Vita (my anglophilia is showing) got it right. Or Lillian and Anais on this side of the pond. A shack, an isolated Cornish farm, Big Sur, or a tower, so as to be able to isolate one’s thoughts […]
Spices
My Essential Cooking Spices Top row left to right: Coriander, Tellicherry Black Peppercorns, Cinnamon Sticks, Aleppo Dried Red Pepper 2nd Row left to right: Bay leaves, Ground Dried Red Pepper, Black Mustard Seeds, Coleman’s Ground Yellow Mustard Seed 3rd row left to right: White and Black Cardamom, Cumin Seed, Hungarian Half-Sharp Paprika, Whole Nutmegs Bottom […]
Sumac
A reaction of horror registers on my student’s faces every time I demonstrate a Lebanese recipe using sumac. “PPPPPoison sumac?!”, they exclaim. I assure them Staghorn Sumac, is not poisonous. Rhus typhina grows wild here in our part of the northeastern United States world (you’ll see it growing along roadsides) and it is similar to […]
Black Walnut Cake
We’re on the wild side again, getting squirrely. I don’t know what it is about the cool weather of Autumn, but it makes me want to scurry along the roadsides and woods to gather like a squirrel. Now I can understand their annoying habit of darting back and forth in front of cars this […]