Syrup’s Rising Soon

Vitality stirs within maple trees, the sap (syrup) beginning to surge, awakening the trees from their hibernations. That’s good news for the trees, as it begins a progress that takes them to this point: (Photo taken early last summer of a maple tree, in the parents’ yard, the author started at age twelve, from seed. …

Solve This Riddle

A puzzle for you – a stockpot of water simmers away on a stovetop.  Inside are two metal cans, topped with aluminum foil and rattling slightly.  What’s inside? Here’s a visual for you:If you guessed the cans hold bread, your advantage, or you’re from Boston, where people have been boiling bread in cans for centuries,…

Along Italy’s Pacific Coast

Wait, what?  There’s the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, but when did this whole Pacific thing happen?  About 150 years ago, actually, when Italian immigrants to the U.S. made their way westward and those of a more nautical disposition found work is San Francisco’s fishing industry.  While many in the Bay Area discovered wealth inland extracting…

Better Start Saturday

What better way to initiate a Sunday morning, or any morning for that matter, than with a buttery, flaky breakfast roll slathered in vibrant fruit jelly?  The combination delivers a warm hug of flavors and textures, with the jelly’s fruity sweetness served up on a pillow of fluffy, yeasty richness.  Achieving such perfection requires considerable…

Where the Sea Greens the Desert

Though the Sahara dominates North Africa, people living along its Mediterranean coast enjoy a lusher, milder climate and a more varied menu than do their inland cousins.  This truth applies particularly so to Algeria, where every village, in fact every family, has its own way of creating charmoula, a vivid spice blend that emphasizes flavor…

Three Kinds of Comfort

What better time than Thanksgiving weekend to luxuriate in a satisfying meal’s reassuring warmth?  This week brings three more classics from Williamsburg, as featured in The Williamsburg Cookbook, Cream of Peanut Soup, Sally Lunn Bread and Indian Corn Muffins.  Each one stokes a contented glow, but their combined effect is pure bliss. Peanut Soup is…

So Addiction Begins

With a fanfare, not a whisper.  One taste is enough to banish all thoughts except how to get more…and more…and more… Such happened today with the Zucchini Bread one of you brought in to share with the office.   Moist, buttery and packed with flavor, the first bite is sublime and the transcendence continues, unbroken,…

Back to the Mediterranean

We visited Lebanon a couple weeks ago and now Greece returns us to the Mediterranean’s sunny shores.  As winter finally catches up to us, a land of lemons and sparkling waters seems a great place to be.  That definitely explains my recent culinary fixation, doesn’t it? This week it’s souvlaki with tzatziki sauce, complete with homemade pita. …