This recipe was inspired by Wildman Steve Brill, who has a foraged, vegan version in his Wild Vegetarian Cookbook. The Wildman uses cashews for their creamy texture and actual sassafras roots foraged from city parks for their vivid flavor, but our civilized ovo-lacto interpretation can be made with ingredients actually purchased in stores. It’s clementine […]

I’ve been meaning to post this for months! Since a few of you requested it, I may as well start with the backlog here. This was a really fun dish to throw together. The saffron turmeric cake was an adaptation of a chocolate cake recipe, where Dave started by replacing the cocoa powder with turmeric […]

Quinces are in season, and this year I mean to take advantage of it. Quinces are like apples’ upscale cousins – tarter, rosier, more gussied up and elegant. While the apple is available right here, right now, the quince must be cooked for a long time until its pale flesh turns a ruddy hue and […]

This is my new favorite ice cream. I mean that. It is absolutely bursting with flavor, rich nuttiness, cookie crunchiness, and surprising sweet sharpness from the sherry vinegar swirl. God, this is good. Dave pointed out that when we brainstorm recipes together they always turn out better than the recipes we create separately on our […]

Life has been busy. I’ve been to Portland, Boston, and home again. I won an acquittal in a murder trial, had lunch at the incomparable Love + Butter, foraged for tasty plants with Wild Man Steve Brill, attended the Fancy Food Show, and discovered that I love not only glassblowing, but lampworking glass beads as […]

I dipped a spoon into the churning ice cream maker and gave it to my brother to taste. “This is actually very good,” he said. “What else are you going to put in it?” “Nothing,” I assured him. “Good!” This took place last Sunday, when we all gathered at my parents’ house to pick sour […]

Plantains, o platanos, which I fell in love with in the form of sweet fried maduros years ago. Plantains, which look like large bananas, but hide a secretly unsweetened center until they blacken and transform into something marvelous. From the black, squishy, grotesque exterior of a fully ripe plantain emerges an ingredient you cannot find […]

While I am still on my Hungarian cooking kick, I offer you two desserts: one traditional, the other, not so much. This my entry for Sugar High Friday 23: Surprise Inside, which is run this month by Alanna of A Veggie Venture. Finding cabbage inside a dessert strudel is not surprising to Hungarians or their […]

I came across this recipe for basil or mint sorbet by Sara Kate over at Apartment Therapy: the kitchen, and of course had to give it a try. I followed Sara Kate’s recipe almost exactly, except that I used apple lambic instead of apple juice, and added it when I added the basil, because I […]

Whenever I see blueberries, I think of my mother. She loves blueberries so much that even when she was pregnant with one of my brothers, Josh, and eating them made her feel nauseous, she just couldn’t stop. Pregnant and sick and miserable, she ate blueberries until she vomited purple. She has told me repeatedly that […]

I have a confession to make: I like chocolate sorbet better than chocolate ice cream. There is a darling little chocolate cafe near my apartment called The Chocolate Room. Every time we go there, we are given a tiny dish of unbelievable Valhrona sorbet as a mise en bouche which always ends up surpassing whatever […]

No story here. Just another photo taken in my parents’ kitchen, and the perfect way to finish off the last sour cherries of the year. The first thing to hit your tongue here is the sour!, and then mostly smooth almond, until a lingering aftertaste of pure, tart cherry sweeps in.

Two ice cream related posts in a row? I suppose it’s appropriate. Let’s say it’s for plaisir sucre‘s summer ice cream event. We also installed our air conditioners a few days ago. Ice cream season is definitively here. Thai iced tea is one of the best substances on the planet. Thai iced tea ice cream […]

Sugar High Friday #19: Ginger It Up! posed a real challenge for me. You see, I love gingery sweets. I make them all the time. I’ve posted about one here already, my ginger rum churros with milk chocolate dipping sauce. I use ginger in my apple pies, my ice creams, everything. And I hate using […]

Cocoa nibs are nothing more than pieces of roasted cocoa beans, the basic building blocks of chocolate. They’re slightly bitter, with an intense flavor that can vary greatly depending on their origin. While you can taste a hint of the chocolate they can become, they really have a unique and incomparable flavor of their own. […]