At one point this weekend I found myself in desperate need of a chocolate fix.  On my posting pipeline was a Nutella tart and some truffles I wanted to make.  But preparing for a short trip in a few days made it difficult to do anything that required making dough or a few hours rest in the fridge.  What’s a girl to do?  I wanted chocolate and fast.  Then I remembered one of the first ...

read post »

Being able to treat my taste buds to new flavors is one of the greatest joys of cooking.  I love trying new recipes, becoming acquainted with unfamiliar spices and learning about a different culture in the process.  A lot of times we encounter the same base ingredients but cooked with different spices, we meet an entirely different dish.  In a way it makes our world seem so big and so small all at once.
Take this ...

read post »

Today was a day that didn’t go as planned, but in a good way.  We meant to ride our bikes, as is typical for us on a Thursday morning, but in the end my husband suggested that we spend the day on the coast.
And what a fun day it turned out to be.  We walked on the beach, along the cliffs, on the dunes, took pictures of flowers and even rescued a bicycling trio who ...

read post »

When it comes to baking my own bread, taking baby steps has been my top rule.  I’ve always been intimidated by the idea of kneading dough, the fears of over- or under-kneading pervading my thoughts and squelching any optimism I might entertain.  Quick breads were a happy compromise as they kept me from coming face-to-face with the bane of my bread-baking fears:  yeast.
Then out comes the New York Times recipe for No-Knead bread and the ...

read post »

The end of this week also means a wrap up of all the work that’s been going on at home the last several days.  The swimming pool was drained, got a fresh coating of fiberglass and was re-tiled.  Inside, my husband decided he had grown tired of the red walls in our guest bathroom so we had the walls prepped for new wall covering.  This was a sad day for me because I’ve always loved ...

read post »