It was a close thing. I mean, I thought I would easily escape success when I decided to make crème brûleé with soy milk. C’mon, doesn’t that sound like disaster? But after suffering through the success of my soy-based clafoutis and the soy crème caramel – both terrible, terrible victories that left all tasters stricken with [...]
Also taggedGoddamn, cherries: am I right? Course I am. Cherries are heavenly little crimson summer pearls. I love them. I will eat them until I am a little bit ashamed, and then I’ll go into the other room and eat more. So to preserve my self-respect, I decided to try my luck with cooking them. Passed [...]
Also taggedCrutching around at home is not as fun as it sounds. Oh sure, I can read, write, knit, email, chat, play the clarinet, sit on the back porch….okay, there are some pluses. Turns out I have a huge perverse streak that fixates on what I can’t do — or, worse, what I could do but [...]
Also tagged banging onIf you’ve read, say, four posts on this blog, you’ve probably encountered at least one of my pet obsessions: the glories of breakfast. Oooh, wonderfullest time of the day. It’s magical. Now that I think about it there’s probably more written about it than any other daily meal. I can’t seem to go two pages [...]
Also tagged breakfast…remember those baguettes I made? Yeah. Still making my pulse race, still making my mouth water. These are fine times to be bethini, which, frankly, I am. But the dough that brought such happy times also brings humility. Remember thou art mortal. The shaping was easy: this dough was a dream to work with. Springy, [...]
Also tagged breadLotta pictures ’round here. As I mentioned previously, if anyone can persuade me to rock the slow-rise bread, it’s Bertinet. Having let my lush, silken dough rise for 90 minutes, it was time for shaping. I took about two-thirds of the enormous dough the recipe produced and divided it into ten lumps. After a short [...]
Also tagged awesome, breadI think I’ve mentioned my enormous crush on Richard Bertinet. He’s the breadmaking bomb. Everything about his attitude, his relaxed savoir-faire and his kneading technique oils my breadboard. He is incredible. His kneading technique alone has been one of the greatest things I’ve learned to improve my bread. If you’re unfamiliar with Monsieur Bertinet, I [...]
Also tagged breadEveryone keeps talking economics to me. There are nervous ripples all around me as everyone gets nervous about the US economy, the Euro economy, the Iceland economy. It got us talking about the Great Depression, about conservation, about frugality. So I did what any slightly off-in-the-head, not-really-sure-how-the-economy-works munchkin would do and did a stocktake of [...]
Also tagged preserved lemonsIn my last bready-bread-bread-bread post, I showed you a sexy in-progress shot of some roast garlic, rosemary and sundried tomato bread I was a-rising. Didn’t show you a finished photo, though, did I? Well, because I love you, blog, I made the bread again just so I could photograph it for you. Well, that’s mostly [...]
Also tagged breadThe preserved lemon experimentation continues! Tonight: zesty preserved lemon guacamole. I’m pretty damn sure you don’t need a guacamole recipe, because you probably know how to make guacamole. And even if you didn’t, the Internet is shrieking with guacamole recipes. But I’ll tell you this: preserved lemons make guacamole freaking incredible. (Probably all the salt [...]
Also tagged awesome, preserved lemons