It’s Valentine’s Day. If chocolate is the currency, these brownies are worth a million bucks. Cheers to love! The Best Fudge Brownies Ever, adapted slightly from a recipe printed on a bag of all-purpose flour made by the King Arthur Flour Company, Inc., of Norwich, Vermont, America’s oldest flour company. 1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted…
Tag: Food
Possum Pie
Beyoncé delivered a killer Super Bowl halftime show Sunday night. I made a killer dessert. We’re simpatico that way. I’ll venture a guess, though, that one can’t wear 18-square-inches of leather and lace and dine on Possum Pie very often. Or not to great effect, anyway. Possum Pie is about to enjoy a renaissance. It rates…
Pancetta Mashed Potatoes
This is my friend J. He’s out of his comfort zone here, wearing an apron in a cooking class and brandishing a ricer. The kitchen is not his natural habitat, and yet here he’s making a dish of creamy potatoes flavored with mascarpone cheese and butter that will be the best-tasting thing produced from a…
Ham and Green Pepper Quiche
I was a quiche-making dynamo on Thursday. Once a month, I cook lunch for a special group of people, about 24 in number, who are either clients or volunteers at a weekly respite care program. I call it my own Third Thursday Café. Everyone there is connected by the scourge of dementia in some form…
Lemon Cake
Once upon a time, a woman and her husband were invited to a Christmas party. The woman knew she’d see friends there who had done nice things for her recently, so, on the day of the party, she made three lemon cakes to take to them as gifts. She grated zest from many lemons, and…
Apple Tarts
I had riches in the refrigerator, extra puff pastry left over from dinner on New Year’s day. Too good to go to waste, this all-butter puff was made by Dufour Pastry Kitchens in New York, and my not-so-local fancy food store had stocked it for the holidays. I’ve read rave reviews about Dufour’s puff pastry…
Sausage Biscuits
I’ve been on the road lately. I had a sausage biscuit for breakfast from McDonald’s in Hermitage, Tennessee, on Wednesday. It was hot and freshly made. I like McDonald’s sausage biscuits a lot, especially with a spongy layer of uber-golden scrambled egg. I had a sausage biscuit for breakfast from Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee,…
Shortbread Linzer Cookies and Stars
Gather ye butter, sugar, and flour. I’m making Christmas cookies today. The base of this recipe can morph into lots of different treats. It is the Transformer of baked goods. I first made it as shortbread hearts for Valentine’s Day from a recipe in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, by Ina Garten. In the recipe headnotes,…
Lunchroom Rolls
Thanksgiving is nigh. I’m not ready. Usually my grocery list for this epic dinner is pages long, listing ingredients for new dishes and old favorites. It’s too much. This is not the year for it. My standbys will be on the table: a roasted turkey breast (we’re not fond of the rest of the bird…
(Fresh) Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Four hundred twenty-six trick-or-treaters pulling one’s bell rope can make a witch grumpy. At my cottage, we can’t beat ’em, so we join ’em! Halloween 2012, by the numbers: 25 pounds of fun-size candy bars, the good kind (Snickers, Twix, Heath Bars, et cetera) for the hordes of costumed children who descended on my patch…
Cookbook Wall 