Don’t get me wrong. At 5 o’clock I was still convinced we were having a leftover night.  We had plenty of leftovers to deal with, all good ones.  All I had to do was get off the couch where I was comfortably settled with my new quilting project, head to the kitchen and reheat a […]

If you ever cooked a large hunk of meat, say, pot roast, picnic pork, leg of lamb, the abominable Thanksgiving turkey, or chicken, you probably have experienced the big feast aftermath syndrome.  Doesn’t ring the bell?  Well… you cook that beautiful cut of meat, you feed everyone until their are full to the brim, and then… and then […]

Aaaah, the good ‘ole form vs content dilemma, old as this world, much discussed by artists, philosophers and critics alike. What do these things mean to us, and how do they operate in our daily lives? Are they important? If so, why? If not, why not?  Since we are dabbling in culinary arts here (as humbly as […]

As days are getting warmer — some places already headed full-throttle into scorching summer heat — meal preparation is dwindling down to a few quick and easy basics. I don’t blame you people,  I mean, who wants to spend the entire evening after a stressful work day cooking when it’s so nice outside (well, that excludes me, […]

Borodinsky bread is my childhood staple food.  We had it practically every day and never grew tired of it. The aroma, the well balanced sweet and sour, the substantial “meaty” crumb and thin glossy crust — should I go on listing all the wonderful things that put this loaf in the bread hall-of-fame? Nowadays, it […]

If you are into bread baking, as I am, you probably know by now that finding the right kind of flour is a very important task.  Using predictable, good quality flour is key in getting predictable, good quality bread loaves day after day.  The task becomes doubly challenging if you are trying to stay away […]

We didn’t have a lot of cookies growing up. This whole love affair with cookies is more of an American phenomenon.  What we did have was  more like crackers — dry and crunchy things of various shapes, flavors and colors, which my grandpa in the very old-fashioned way called biscuits. We loved them.  When I […]