I made it through Thanksgiving this year with nary a scrape. Quite an accomplishment considering the near-disastrous mishap with my knee back in October. I limped my way back to bake again! Not only did I manage to crank out two pies for dessert–delightfully airy pumpkin chiffon and a zippy riff on the classic lemon…
Category: Television
And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming…
I’m back from my self-imposed hiatus…sort of. I know I’ve been M.I.A. from the blog for several weeks. I’ve got a good reason. You see, I’ve finally found a full-time job! No, I don’t mean in a kitchen–that professional chapter has more or less run its course sadly. My body (specifically my poor feet, ankles,…
Feast of St. Paddy’s…or frolicking in a field of (sugar cookie) clovers
The only times I ever really pull out the green food coloring are Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day…and even then it’s with a modicum of restraint–so no green velvet cake (just picture for a moment the inside of one’s mouth after a eating a slice of that), no green bagels (we’re talking about an unnatural,…
The Crown Returns…or taking a trip back to the 80’s.
I have been waiting all year for November to finally arrive. No, I’m not talking about the presidential election–the excruciatingly overwrought drama that refuses to end. Yes, by all verified accounts we did elect a new POTUS. But the current one is clearly refusing to accept the fact that his reality tv show has been…
Keeping it simple…or the benefits of NOT reinventing the wheel.
The directive was straightforward–make a brownie that was the perfect marriage of crusty exterior and fudgy interior. Simple, right? Except it wasn’t…not by a long shot. I, and countless other fans of The Great British Baking Off, watched in horror and disbelief as one contestant after another failed, some rather miserably, to bake an even…
School Night Suppers
I came across this old class photograph from my kindergarten class in Hong Kong today. That’s me in the front row, second from the right. I was about four years old I think. Memories of those early school days play in my head like a Netflix trailer–snippets of highlights that offer me a glimpse into…
The comfort of cream cheese…or burning cheesecake on purpose
When the immediate world around us is literally going up in flames, tsunami waves of thick noxious smoke blanketing the sky, it seems perversely ironic a burnt (on purpose) cheesecake has become food media’s latest obsession, eclipsing the early pandemic darling sourdough. In the Bay Area, a one-man operation based out of Oakland called Basuku–brainchild…
Small Wonders…or the pleasures of a perfect bite
“Cakes are healthy too, you just eat a small slice.” ― Mary Berry I suppose there are times for colossal slices of cake, fatter than the Cake Bible itself, loaded with enough calories to sustain a small child for a week, and so obscenely heavy it could suffocate a small lapdog–an IG “Omg, can you believe the…
Savoring Puff Pastry…or the preaching the power of pig fat.
I’m one of those pastry chefs who very rarely makes their own puff pastry. Unlike croissant dough, good quality puff pastry dough is usually readily available (okay unless you live in the middle of nowhere, then you’re SOL), so I’m not especially motivated to make it from scratch…certainly not without a pastry sheeter. That’s not…
It’s tea time somewhere in the world…or I dream of Chelsea buns
I’ve resigned myself to the sobering fact that I’m not gonna be going anywhere anytime soon, nothing outside my self-imposed 5 mile radius…no flights across the country to visit friends in Maine…and certainly no trips outside the country. The world has, in effect, uninvited us to their party because we can’t be trusted to not…