One of the electives that I took in grad school was a food history class, which functioned not so much like a class, but rather like a really intense book club. When the professor handed out the syllabus on the first day, the reading list included not only a new book for each weekly meeting, but another long list of books that we were instructed to divvy up among ourselves and read independently. The longest book we were all required to read was Vestal Fire, by Stephen Pyne, which weighed in at an astounding 680 pages (I’ll let you take…
For the past few weeks, I have been obsessed with Project Runway. And I mean obsessed with a capital O. We’re only on episode four of the current season, but so far, those few episodes have done nothing but whet my appetite for more. Fortunately, in addition to its many other charms, the Boston Public Library has multiple copies of almost all the previous seasons on DVD, so when I found myself home alone one evening last week, I was able to sit down with a glass of wine and hours and hours of runway footage. Just perfect. In general,…
Clearly I’ve been feeling all kinds of nostalgic lately, especially in the dessert department. The only sweets I’ve made in the last month are old favorites from my pre-Boston days, and here I am with yet another. It’s not like I have any shortage of dessert cookbooks lying around, but what can I say? I’ve just been hankering for the old faithfuls lately. Temperatures are high, energy is low, and I’m more than happy to fall back on recipes I could probably bake with my eyes closed. These blondies are nothing if not faithful. The recipe is so simple, you…
Mayonnaise and I have a complicated relationship. Over the years, it’s gone from love to tolerance to hatred, then back to tolerance, and now it has grown into what I think can only be described as “wuuuv… twoooo wuuuuv.” The first stage of love is easy enough to explain: I was about four years old. I specifically remember sitting at a blue and yellow plastic kiddie table in my family’s living room, dipping cut-up pieces of hot dog in mayonnaise. But there’s no accounting for what we like when we’re that young, and my feelings for mayo cooled sometime during…
When I was a junior in college, I decided I wanted to major in biology. Yep– junior year. Better late than never, right? Fortunately, I’d already taken all of my required courses, and I had half of about three different majors, thanks to my first two years of dabbling in everything. That meant that I could take on my new major halfway through college without having to push back my graduation date at all, provided that I was willing to eat, sleep, and breathe biology for my final two years of school. And sure enough, my first semester as a…
Here’s the thing about avoiding oven use during the summer: I just can’t do it. Oh, oven, I can’t stay mad at you! I can, however, stay mad at upper-90 degree temperatures. I’m convinced that summer is only fun for people with central air, pool or beach access, and sufficient free time to enjoy them. Since I have none of the above, I say bring on the fall. If there’s one thing summer is good for, though, it’s fresh produce. Assuming you can get past the sweltering temperatures and oppressive humidity, there’s nothing better than strolling through the farmers market…
Ever have a time when nothing in life seems to go right? When things just refuse to change, despite your best efforts? Me too. Here’s what I suggest in times like these. One. Try to find about five minutes at home alone. Create a ruse to get everyone out of the house if you need to (but don’t ask me how, I didn’t need to). Two. Play this song as loud as you can stand. Sing along as loud as you can stand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbO2_077ixs Three. This will relieve the physical tension that hard times put in your body. It’ll do that just as…
We’re going to change the pace with today’s installment and talk about a recent evening in the kitchen that ended nicely, but first went very, very poorly. As is the case with most food blogs, all the photo editing and lovely stories make it look like life is all birthday cakes and beautiful muffins, all the time. But I want to make it known that some truly terrible stuff comes out of my kitchen sometimes. Let’s get down to it. I’m going to start off by immediately shifting the blame for this failure to Trader Joe’s. You heard me, TJ’s!!…
I’m sure this is true for everyone, but I’ve lately noticed that there’s really no rhyme or reason in how I determine which things I like and which things I don’t. Take music, for instance. I was listening to one of my favorite summer playlists on my iPod today when “These Words” by Natasha Bedingfield came on. As I was silently grooving along, I realized that, by all accounts, this isn’t a song I would normally like. The chorus is borderline moronic (“I love you I love you I love you I love you– just get a load of the…
You probably wouldn’t guess it, given my obvious enthusiasm about life in a city about 1,000 miles away from all my family, but I was an incurable homebody when I was younger. The occasional sleepover at a friend’s house was fine. A week at Grandmother’s? Ok, but only because that’s basically like being at home, anyway. But a week long spend-the-night summer camp? Nooooooo. Not on your life. I tried to do the whole camp thing exactly three times. The first time, I made it about six hours before I got weepy, and about three days before I literally made…
As I mentioned in last week’s throw-together post, I have a lot of veggies coming my way this summer, thanks to a membership in the Red Fire Farm CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, which makes the phase “CSA membership” a little problematic (maybe “farm share” would be better?). But whatever you call it, the reality of heaping bags of produce coming into my kitchen every week is a pure joy. It feels a little like Christmas, heaping all my weekly goodies onto the kitchen table, figuring out when to cook what, and trying to cram them all into…
How can I put this without sounding like a broken record? Ahhh… maybe I should just come out with it: it’s hot out there. It hasn’t been terrible so far. I have a number of breezy summer dresses to help me beat the heat, and it definitely counts for something that I’m not spending this summer working an outdoor job. But it’s still pretty toasty in our apartment, and the oven and I are still steering clear of one another, for the most part. In…
Oh, technology. Why? Whyyyyy?? I was just wrapping up a post about a delicious dessert that I made last week, when WordPress decided to go nuts on me and delete the whole thing. Yes, bigger disasters have happened… it’s just a blog post, not something important, like a policy brief that’s due tomorrow (yikes, my blood pressure spiked just from the thought). But I think my frustration is definitely warranted. I have every intention of rewriting the post. But for now, how about if I just share some pictures from the last few weeks? Yeah? Here we go. There are…
Well, friends, I am officially a quarter-century old. I just capped off a week of celebrations, and I am completely floored by all the love that came my way. I was regaled with phone calls, Facebook posts, songs, and cards, as well as cookbooks, records, Cheetos (of course), dishes, fancy spices, wine… and a gorgeous watch from Alex. I can’t even process it all right now, except to say that I am absolutely sure I have the best friends and family in the world. No question. So now that I’ve hit the 25-year mark, am I officially old and wise?…
The arrival of summertime is a good thing for many reasons, but one downside is that using the oven, even for a few minutes, between the months of June and September turns our apartment into a sauna. When I moved to Boston from the Deep South, I thought I was leaving sweltering weather behind, but I soon found out that the benefit of lower temperatures is completely cancelled out by the total lack of residential air conditioning. Fans and window units keep our living space comfortable most of the time, but as soon as that oven goes on, forget it….