December 20, 2008
Okay. Sorry to send you to the same place two days in a row… BUT I am SO making these caramels over the weekend!
Holiday Gifts Good Enough To Eat
**And scroll on to the bottom for Chocolate Truffles and Flavored Salt!
December 19, 2008
From All Things Considered:
Shirley Corriher of Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking, shares with us a fantastic holiday baking secret & the recipe for her favorite Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.
Happy Holiday Baking!
December 10, 2008
The winners of the first Dinner Social have been posted to http://www.aveceric.com/ and each of the winners received a camera from Olympus.
How great is that? Have dinner and drinks with friends & win a camera.
The new recipes have been posted and they are fantastic… friend (and colleague) Angie Mosier took the lovely photographs.
Happy Holidays!
November 11, 2008
On Saturday afternoon, I had the honor of touring the Edible Schoolyard and having lunch in the new Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School Dining Commons. Alice Waters, the Chez Panisse Foundation and a team of others are working towards changing the way we see the school lunch program in America.
The program was inspiring, delicious and beautiful and I am committed to bringing this philosophy into the life of my own daughter.
Here is an overview of the work being accomplished by the Chez Panisse Foundation:
October 26, 2008
Eric Ripert believes:
I believe that the act of preparing, eating and sharing food should be at the center of our lives – not only feeding our bodies but our emotional and spiritual needs as well. One of my favorite things about cooking is sharing this experience with good friends and family. As it gets cooler, a simple and elegant home cooked meal is the perfect excuse to gather together to enjoy the bounty of the Fall harvest. The markets right now are a fantastic source of inspiration with all of the amazing fruits and vegetables available. A great dinner party does not have to be complicated – good, simple ingredients and clear organization are all you need to create a wonderful meal to share with loved ones. I want to show you how dinner parties can be fun for everyone – not just your guests!
September 17, 2008
When Melanie described this new STC title, I could not fully imagine how a book about domesticity could be so interesting. And now, I am taken aback by the beauty, prose and “comforts” of Jane Brocket and The Gentle Art of Domesticity.
When opening the book, I was stuck by the very first line: “There is a world of difference between domesticity and domestication.”
Jane makes me long for more time at home studying the simple beauty of life and love.
July 17, 2008
Okay. If you live in the South (and perhaps everywhere else for that matter), summertime is filled with anonymous gifts left on your porch.
Martha Foose writes, “When it is not possible to eat all the squash that comes out of the backyard garden quickly enough, the Kornegays have admitted to leaving anonymous gifts on neighbors’ doorsteps under the cover of darkness. They, too, have been on the receiving end of this generous gesture.”
Well, let me attest to the fact that this has been “one particularly prolific summer” for crooknecked squash.
When I lived in Vienna, I visited a restaurant called “Panigl” just about every (other) night of the week. (Is my name still scrawled under the table at my seat?) Well, I used to love an antipasti dish of slow-roasted vegetables that seemed to melt in your mouth. My dear friend, Agatha Whitechapel, once told me how to make the dish and I have approximated her instructions here:
July 14, 2008
After our “Sewing, Cooking and Community” extravaganza in Atlanta, just about everyone asked me about Angie’s Pimento Cheese recipe (pronounced “puhmenaaacheeeez”).
The first time I saw Angie’s recipe, it surprised me to see onion included, but now I firmly believe that this is the trick.
July 13, 2008
Did I forget to mention that Maggie is having a holiday with Butch in the woods?
Ingredients:
Two handfuls of fresh fingerling potatoes
Two small finger eggplants (one and one-half inch in diameter)
Two red peppers
One whole garlic bulb
One 4” sprig of fresh rosemary
Grated Parmesan cheese
Olive oil
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Huber “HUGO” – Gurener Veltliner (purchased from my local wine cellar)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Cut fingerling potatoes into approximate one inch cubes (triangles, rectangles, and the occasional octagonal shape permissible as well.)
Remove head and slice eggplant down the middle.
Place potatoes, eggplant and red peppers into a baking dish, add fresh rosemary leaves and drizzle with olive oil. Add salt and pepper and mix with hands to coat evenly.
Slice top from garlic bulb and place into baking dish.
Sip wine.
Bake for 20 minutes, remove red peppers (to be used for pimento cheese tomorrow) and stir potatoes. Continue baking 10 minutes.
Sip wine.
Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese onto eggplant and continue baking 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and arrange potatoes and eggplant on plate. Squeeze roasted garlic from its paper shell and use as decor (not to mention for dipping eggplant.)
Sip wine and eat.
Nap and enjoy.
(Whitechapel, I enjoyed our conversation today and wish that you were here.)
July 12, 2008
From The New York Times, June 18, 2008:
Biscuit Bakers’ Treasured Mill Moves North
By SHAILA DEWAN
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
FOR generations of Southern bakers, the secret to weightless biscuits has been one simple ingredient passed from grandmother to mother to child: White Lily all-purpose flour.
Biscuit dives and high-end Southern restaurants like Watershed in Atlanta and Blackberry Farm outside Knoxville use it. Blue-ribbon winners at state fair baking contests depend on it. On food lovers’ Web sites, transplanted Southerners share tips on where to find it, and some of them returning from trips back home have been known to attract attention when airport security officers detect a suspicious white dust on their luggage.
White Lily is distinctly Southern: it has been milled here in downtown Knoxville since 1883 and its white bags (extra tall because the flour weighs less per cup than other brands) are distributed almost solely in Southern supermarkets, although specialty stores like Williams-Sonoma and Dean & DeLuca have carried it at premium prices.
But at the end of June, the mill, with its shiny wood floors, turquoise and red grinders and jiggling armoire-size sifters, will shut its doors. The J. M. Smucker Company, which bought the brand a year ago, has already begun producing White Lily at two plants in the Midwest, causing ripples of anxiety that Southern biscuits will never be the same.