Month: February 2015

The Best Vanilla Tapioca Pudding

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This was supposed to be a recipe for scones. I had all of the right ingredients: the good organic milk, the heavy cream, fresh blueberries, buttermilk and sweet cream butter. In case you’re curious, I had planned to make either this beauty from Tartine or this one from Sally’s Baking Addiction.  I couldn’t go wrong with either one. Bright and early Saturday morning, I stood in front of the refrigerator and the urge to bake just left me. We both had a laundry list of chores for the day–I was still on my wild decluttering tear (still am!) and The Husband had his own list of honey-do’s to accomplish. Hauling out flour and grating butter was a little more than I could fathom so I declared scones a Sunday project because time was ticking and there is no shorter day of the week than Saturday…Sunday being a very close second. Sunday morning came and went and I still hadn’t made the scones. To me, Sunday breakfast requires bacon and eggs, toast and orange juice (I’ve never been able to get …

This Orderly Conduct: Reorganizing my Closet, plus A Stellar Grain Bowl

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I recently came to the realization that my house is completely out of order. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I completely forgot about a pair of tickets to see Ira Glass performing at the Smith Center. Those tickets weren’t cheap and I’d been looking forward to the show for months. The day of the show came and I spent the day baking cakes and making bolognese, totally oblivious to the date. Ten minutes before the show was to start, I found myself standing in the kitchen, dressed in flour-dusted sweats, staring in shock at the reminder on my phone. I have never completely forgotten an event like that! I felt like I was going to be sick. The next clue came when I found a long-forgotten medical bill under a pile of papers on my desk that I had set aside to investigate. But the straw that broke the horses’s back, was the Thing I Found in the Pantry. It was an unidentifiable mass in the bottom of the box where I keep the potatoes and …

Elk Kofta B’siniyah with Tahini Sauce

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  If you’ve read my About page, you might remember that I told a little story about eating squirrel. I was born in North Carolina, and though I wouldn’t call my hometown “the country”, my grandmother’s house, where I spent most of my time, butted up against a woodsy area that I don’t think was owned by anyone. It was just “the woods” and it was where I would pick blackberries in the summer and where my teenaged uncle would hunt. On Saturdays he would take his BB gun and venture out to the woods and come back a few hours later with a rabbit or two. My grandmother would clean his catch and cook them up, usually in a simple fricassee. In fact, she actually called it “fricassee” (the first food term I learned) and it must have been her signature dish because it’s the only thing I ever remember her making. The day my uncle brought home the squirrel was forever seared in my memory because I saw it in my grandmother’s 1970s avocado-green sink, skinned and looking very much …

My Tiny Amazing Wedding

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I’ve been to a lot of weddings in my life, but as far as weddings go, this one was the best, because it was ours. It wasn’t held in a big wedding hall or cathedral. There were no bridesmaids or groomsmen. It was just us, in our own backyard, with a couple dozen of our closest friends and family members. My best girlfriend had written a tight schedule for me, outlining the tasks I needed to accomplish in the days and hours leading up to The Big Day. Amazingly, I slept soundly through the night and opened my eyes at 7 am, feeling content and refreshed. As I lay there thinking through the day’s schedule, The Husband-to-be, who had been a big ball of prickly stress all week long, rolled over and put his arms around me and whispered “happy nuptial dinner day”. I happily snuggled in for just a few more minutes of cozy shut-eye and realized that no matter what happened the rest of the day, this would be the moment I would remember most. There were plenty of tasks ahead, but we started …